MILAN — Moncler chairman and chief executive officer Remo Ruffini is rebooting Moncler Grenoble as a “high performance” brand.
Exemplifying this strategy, the brand is launching its new collection with a short film shot by Jonas Lindstroem. With the campaign, it unveils its new and latest brand ambassador, French professional skier Richard Permin.
The video shows Permin skiing down Chile’s glacial Quetrupillán volcano in the most challenging conditions, narrowly outpacing tumbling snow. A community of skiers suddenly emerge from the snow cloud in formation behind him. Permin wears Moncler Grenoble High Performance Lapaz jacket, Terrabeam goggles, Meninx Rs Mips helmet and Reusch for Moncler Grenoble gloves.
Moncler Grenoble also counts champions such as French mogul skier Perrine Laffont and snowboarder Shaun White among its ambassadors.
This year, the collection is divided in four different lines: Day-namic, Après Ski, Performance and Style and High Performance, from technical performance to after ski with lightweight products for spring and summer or early fall.
The first drop of the High Performance outerwear in stores now is designed to perform in the most extreme conditions. For example, the Brizonshell jacket is waterproof, windproof and highly breathable. It features taped seams and trademarked YKK AquaGuard zippers, and an adjustable hood with a rigid visor.
Available in yellow and navy, the unlined, highly breathable Hinterburg jacket is made with recycled Gore-Tex laminate. For even more extreme weather, the down Cerniatski jacket comes with integrated PrimaLoft Gold Insulation Active to the sleeves, sides and hood.
The collections are available for men, women and children.
In addition to being available at top ski resorts from St. Moritz and Verbier in Switzerland to Courchevel in France and Aspen or Vail, Colorado, the company is rolling out a series of pop-up stores from Wien and Crans Montana, to Shinjuku Isetan. In South Korea, it landed in Shinsegae Gangnam and Lotte Avenue World Tower and in China at Beijing China Worlds and Shanghai P66. The stores will stand until the middle or end of January, depending on the city.
The brand has also been partnering over the years with top skiing schools in luxury resorts.
During Moncler’s Capital Markets Day in May, chief brand officer Gino Fisanotti pointed to the group’s legitimacy in supporting the development of Moncler Grenoble. “The brand is part of our DNA, it truly belongs to us and now we will double down on the technical aspect,” Fisanotti said at the time.
A summer proposition will be explored as “consumer behavior has changed toward the mountains and a technical collection [works] year-round,” he added.
Moncler Grenoble owes its name to the city that hosted the Olympic Games in 1968 when the brand was the French national ski team’s official supplier.
The first Grenoble collection was presented in New York in January 2010 during the city’s fashion week.