We’re energized about our 2024 Fall Collection, and we know you will be, too!
Our Senior Design Manager Jeff Wright offers an inside look at how he and the team developed our newest styles and colors. If you love to be in the loop, you’ll appreciate this look at our year-long process of how we bring new products to market:
How We Develop New Styles
Here at Storm Creek, we consider three main factors when we add new styles to our lineup:
- Styles that work for both men and women
- Styles that expand our current assortment
- Styles that use the maximum amount of sustainable fabrics available to us
Everything in the fashion industry shifts from season to season and year to year. As we look at new styles—also called silhouettes—we compare them to our current assortment. How many heavyweight jackets and knits do we have? How many midweight and lightweight? We want to be sure a new style won’t conflict with a style we already have.
We compare these silhouettes in all our categories like sweater knits, cut-and-sewn knits, woven jackets, knit jackets or insulated jackets. These styles go in cycles with color being the quickest to change while fit and fiber are slower to change.
We look at the composition of our line and investigate any holes we may have with respect to fashion trends. This is always in consideration of the markets we serve. For us, that means the corporate promotional market, resorts and retailers, and direct-to-consumer. With our corporate market, it’s especially important we have companion styles for both genders.
The other aspect we always consider when developing new styles is sustainable fabrics. Our factory partners actively research and develop new technology in using recycled plastic bottles for polyester yarns. When these new fibers become available to us, we adopt them into our fabrics to get the highest ratio of recycled-to-virgin yarns we can.
Sometimes that means improving a garment we already have by increasing its sustainability. Sometimes that means using these new fabrics to create new styles in our assortment. We take great care in the development process of both to prevent waste and to make the best use of our resources.
How We Choose New Colors
We use color forecasting services that express the color trends from season to season and year to year. We look at the basic hues of the color palette: blues, greens, reds, oranges, purples, you name it. Those main color groups migrate over time, with a difference between the spring/summer colors and the fall/winter colors.
These colors also shift depending on which market we are serving. The resort/retail/consumer trends experience more frequent color changes. Our corporate market, though, is much more traditional with basic colors and silhouettes.
In the northern part of our hemisphere, we have distinct seasons with darker colors for fall and lighter colors for spring. And even in more moderate climates, there are still seasons, so we still want color changes. And because we’re Storm Creek and we care about serving the markets we’re in well, we base our color choices around trends in the retail outdoor market.
For the past few seasons, we’ve seen deep, rich colors for our fall and winter jackets and knits. We use names like Nutmeg, Redwood and Balsam Green. In addition, some of the women’s line has a soft side with colors like Lavender, Alaskan Blue and Meadow Green—reminiscent of Merino and Shetland wools.
A big trend we’ve seen in the outdoor market, especially for fall and winter, is the metallic and ore-based colors like brass, copper, bronze and lead. With our two newest jackets, the Artisan and Aviator, we chose color names that reflect their heritage. Olive Drab and Fatigue Green are colors taken from the military uniforms of World War I, for example.
We introduce the newest colors in our biggest-selling knit products like our Sightseer Hoodie/Tee and Pacesetter Quarter Zip. Along with the new colors we introduce, we always carry our classic or core colors as well: black, navy and various shades of gray.
Storm Creek’s Exciting New Styles for 2024
Summit Jacket—Our new Summit Jacket for men and women features a luxurious microfleece exterior bonded with a sherpa interior. We realized we had a gap in our line that this cozy heavyweight jacket fills nicely. It’s a simple design with beautiful fabric in two classic colors and two fashion colors for men and women. It uses 40 (men’s) and 37 (women’s) recycled bottles per garment.
Women’s Overachiever Pullover—We added this women’s style to be a companion product to the men’s Overachiever Pullover. This was one of the few styles we hadn’t offered for both genders. We offered the men’s design in XXS as a unisex approach but then decided to add the women’s silhouette with more feminine design lines. It uses 23 recycled water bottles per garment. (Psst! The men’s design will still be available in XXS.)
PFAS-Free Water-Repellent Finish—This is a new fabric we’re particularly excited about that we’re using on several current outerwear products. We’ve been working hard to get away from fabrics that include PFAS due to the environmental hazard. This new fabric has what’s called C-Zero technology. It’s a durable water-repellent finish that passes the “rain test”—windproof and water resistant. It has a matte finish because of the structure of the recycled polyester fibers that don’t reflect light.
For 2024 we switched our former glossy finish on current products, like the Traveler Jacket and Vest, to this new matte finish fabric that is made without PFAS. And we also use it with two new jacket silhouettes we’ll talk about next.
Artisan Jacket—We borrowed this vintage design from the shirt jackets of the thirties and forties. This classic style for men and women includes a snap front that mimics the old lumber jacket. It features 100 GSM Thermolite insulation and contains 21 (men’s) and 19 (women’s) recycled bottles per garment.
Aviator Jacket—Another vintage design is the World War 2 bomber jacket, which we’ve adapted for our new Aviator for men and women. Replacing the traditional leather shell is our new PFAS-free finish described above. It has ribbed cuffs, collar and bottom band and uses 18 (men’s) and 14 (women’s) recycled bottles per garment.
View our new 2024 Everyday Eco Catalog here.
Be sure to contact your Storm Creek sales rep with any questions you have.
Further reading:
5 Tips for Going Green in Promotional Products
PFAS: Why We’re Phasing Them out of Our Products
What It Means for Storm Creek to be Women-Owned
