How Did a Coat Once Only Loved by Rural Airline Workers Become the World’S Must-Have Winter Jacket?

WORDS BY ian BURRELL HOW DID A COAT ONCE ONLY LOVED BY RURAL AIRLINE WORKERS BECOME THE WORLD’S MUST-HAVE WINTER JACKET? The dizzying flight of Canada Goose p on the slopes at Val d’Isère or Ver- fluff that interlock, trapping the pockets the sewers, were like family,” he says. Ubier, they probably don’t spend an of still air which provide insulation. The “Some still work for Canada Goose and awful lot of time dwelling on the humble finest down, many would say, emanates they are like my grandparents.” circumstances of the Hutterites, living from a mature Hutterite goose. As a high-school student, Reiss spent in their colonies on the exposed prairies During the past few winters, Canada each summer holiday working at the of western Canada. Goose’s distinctive parkas, with their factory. “I was in packing, finishing and And yet it is to this transitory Anabap- coyote fur-lined hoods, have become the shipping department, I was in recep- tist community – which has spent 400 increasingly popular, in spite of the fact tion and typed letters, and I was in the years fleeing a succession of persecutors that many of its products sell for close to down-filling room filling jackets with on an exodus from Moravia in Eastern £1,000. Annual revenues have grown down,” he says. “I did every job except Europe to the uplands of Alberta and from £2.7m in 2001 to £81m in 2013. for sewing – I still don’t know how to Manitoba – that many of the best-clad The expansion of Canada Goose from operate a sewing machine.” in this winter’s ski resorts will owe their a little-known family business to a glo- And yet, for all this practical experi- snugness. The Hutterites do lots of busi- bally-recognised and highly-coveted ence, Reiss harboured no ambition to take ness with Canada Goose. clothing label is largely the result of the the reins at a business that his grandfather A company that started out providing vision of one man: Dani Reiss. had founded in 1957, before he was born. practical outerwear to those working in or He sits down amid clothes rails groan- In fact, as a teenager he wouldn’t even around the Arctic Circle, Canada Goose ing with Canada Goose jackets in the put on the “functional, utilitarian and has grown to become fashionable not just marketing offices the company has northern” garments. His parents “tried among skiers and climbers, but with the recently opened behind London’s Ox- to get me to wear them as a kid [but] I urban smart set from Milan to Tokyo. ford Street to pursue further European wanted to wear denim jackets”. Canada The brand’s essential component is growth. Despite his transformational Goose was so clearly a product for more the Hutterite down which is found in role, Reiss, aged 40, is no outsider. He austere, distant climes that it didn’t even every Canada Goose jacket. The Anabap- was five years old when his father first have a retail outlet in its hometown. tists raise large, free-range herds of geese brought him to the three-storey factory “The business was definitely in de- and ducks in the prairie fields and sell the in downtown Toronto to have his hair cline and I was not attracted to it. My down as well as the meat. Each ounce of ruffled by the women stitching together parents told me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t down has some two million filaments of the hardwearing coats. “All the ladies, do this, because the clothing industry > 22 THE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE THE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE 23.

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