Erin Isakov Is Bringing High Fashion Back To Skiing

Isakov joked that her time on skis began even before she was born. Her parents met on skis at California’s Mammoth Mountain. As a toddler, her parents attached skis to her tiny feet even before she could walk. As a teenager, she snowboarded, but skiing was always in her DNA. Her father was a ski patroller who served in the military, was a surfer and a glass blower, and later worked in the airline industry. He met her mother when she was skiing full-time during a break from college. She spotted him on the slope and, as a storm picked up, accepted his offer to put chains on her car so she could drive home.

For a while, it looked like Isakov’s professional life would not involve snow sports at all. At Brown University, she majored in philosophy and public policy, and thought she would become a human rights lawyer. But after a year at a big law firm, buried under securities litigation, she abandoned the plan for law school and looked instead for a job where she could tap into her interests of art and design. That led to the fashion industry where she got the training she needed to launch her own company.

At the start, Isakov and her team took products to brick-and-mortar ski shops. There, they were grilled about the technical aspects, and when asked to defend one of their items (retro styled in-the-boot stretch pants) the product gave bootfitters conniptions. At ski shows, the all-girl team built booths where they displayed wares and explained the line's performance qualities. "The technical specifications for making clothing are like the blueprint for a house. I had to show I knew how to do that," says Isakov.

Erin Snow's clothing line revives looks from the late 1960s, when Jean-Claude Killy won races, Robert Redford starred in Downhill Racer, and Isakov’s parents were young. Those looks, in turn, derive from the years right after World War II, when Hannes Schneider and others brought the Arlberg technique and European style to resorts across the US. But one of the most influential designers of that era stayed in his native Italy. "Emilio Pucci was a real innovator in skiwear. His ski suits and stretch pants brought vibrancy to ski wear,” says Isakov. “By the late 1940s and 50s, he was able to use synthetic materials, and they could handle vibrant dyes which wool could not."

Today, Erin Snow's palette is basic yet bold, with lots of black, white, blue, red and fuschia. Despite the subtly retro feel, the line takes advantage of recent advances in fabric. "We use stretch, soft shell, PrimaLoft and other performance fabrics to give skiers what they need. We think about both form and function," says Isakov. In an industry where more and more consumers are acutely aware of and picky about how products are made, Isakov says, "We pay attention to factory conditions, don't use certain chemicals, and use recycled materials as much as possible."

My conversation with Isakov reminded me of what Leslie Baker-Brown, the mastermind behind Tecnica’s W2W project, had said about bustles and bustiers. Though I'm not likely to wear either for skiing (or at all), the fact that such garments were created reminds us that the fashion industry has had its eye on the female form for centuries. Now, with help from women like Baker-Brown and Isakov, the ski industry has undergone a merger of performance and female-specific needs. And women like bootfitters Sam Tischendorf and Allison Kozar help customers find products best suited to them. Was there ever a better time for a woman to go skiing?