From 3D articulating pants to innovative fabrics, great product design built Kühl. We joined the Kühl team in Salt Lake City for an average day of skiing, mountain biking, and designing to learn how they continually improve themselves and their award winning products – managing to have a whole lot of fun in the process.
Transcript
Kevin Boyle: When I was 18 I moved out here. I think I suffered from a lot of the same diseases that a lot of 18 year old’s suffer from, and that’s opinionitis and foot-in-mouth disease. Not only did I lose my job, but I lost my ski pass and my place to live. I lived in a snow cave for six weeks until I could find a job. Two years later, started Kuhl with a couple friends. From all those experiences living outside we just felt like there wasn’t a lot of great product out there.
Whether it’s skiing or mountain biking, we have people who are passionate about constant improvement. It makes this really exciting to come to work. We have this ability to make prototype after prototype, and then ask ourselves what can we do to make it better? From developing our own fabrics to developing our own patterns, we’re taking wovens and knits, and creating an exoskeleton pant where it feels like you’re wearing a sweatpant.
When we originally approached REI with our new pant program, and they saw something that was completely different, they took a chance on us. We’re making a lot of products that look like they’re just casual sportswear, but they’re actually high-performance.
Liz Sneath: People are always coming and going from adventures. I like to be outside and you’ve got to enjoy it, and I think people are really good at that here. Spyfire is exciting because it’s such a versatile down jacket. Everybody’s striving to find something they can take traveling, hiking, and they can take on their everyday adventure.
Kevin Boyle: Instead of being clothing as equipment, or clothing as fashion, for 30 years we’ve been bringing the two together to create great, great product is what built Kuhl.
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