THE TRAP: “The imagery of Canada is the Great White North, the polar bears, the Aurora Borealis, we all live in igloos.
That’s the mythology. People around the world love that mythology.”
- Dani Reiss, CEO of Canada Goose to Toronto Star
Companies like Canada Goose love to evoke iconic imagery of research scientists hiking along the unforgiving Arctic tundra. The rhetoric gets quite sensational, claiming that when a “life is on the line” their products are the optimal choice. Their jackets are designed for places “where skin around the face can freeze in an instant”. So if Canada Goose makes coats for the “coldest places on earth”, why are they all over Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and every other city in Canada? And moreover, why has it been described as “the uniform of the inner city aged 16-to-24 year olds” by Randy Harris, president of market research firm Trendex North America?
The truth is that around $50 million of Canada Goose’s annual sales are what CEO Dani Reiss calls “fashion-driven”. Canada Goose products are a fashion trend and warmth is merely a selling feature. Reiss even admits that the badge on the arm of a Canada Goose jacket makes “people feel like they belong to a club”. A Canada Goose jacket is about status.
Reiss claims that Canada Goose is the “Swiss watch of apparel”, the “Land Rover of outerwear”. In reality, Canada Goose is much more like a Hummer: excessive, irresponsible, unnecessary, and sooner than many will expect, embarrassing. It’s a Hummer that also runs over animals.
But does Canada Goose really argue their jackets are necessary, not just trendy? Do they really allege that they are both focused on functionality while simultaneously touting their products as elite symbols of status?
Canada Goose Claim: “In these environments, when life is on the line, fur is not just the best choice, but the only choice. We do not use fake or “faux” fur because it simply does not protect as well as real coyote fur. Faux fur is only a fashion statement. It does not act in the same way that real fur does to protect skin from frostbite”.
Any kind of fur, including coyote fur, is NOT necessary. Lots of people climb mountains without down-filled or fur-trimmed parkas. Several competing brands focused on technical performance use only synthetic materials. And apart from the hood, Canada Goose jackets are made with synthetic fabrics (polyester, nylon and much of it is treated with durable water repellent (DWR) finish). And more importantly, the vast majority of people do not even live in climates where their skin can freeze in an instant. The majority of the Canadian population lives in large urban cities near the southern border.
Canada Goose Claim: “It is for precisely this reason that the technologies of centuries past used fur for protection against the extreme cold. Today we are able to use as little fur as possible, while maintaining the critical functionality of this sort of product”.
Referring to the historical use of fur is a moot point. The only point that matter is that NO ONE needs to wear fur. With the plethora of alternatives, why would a company ever choose such a violent product?
Canada Goose Claim: “We choose down because it is, without a doubt, the world’s best insulator…Down provides approximately three times the warmth per ounce as synthetics materials…”.
The US Army, Marines and Special Forces may beg to differ. PrimaLoft is a synthetic microfibre insulator that was originally developed for the US Army as a water resistant down alternative. Today, Primaloft is the premier supplier of insulation to the US Army, Marines and Special Forces. When it comes to thermal efficiency, Primaloft is a competitive alternative, especially given that down performs poorly as an insulator as soon as it becomes wet, and also has a slow drying rate. Primaloft retains 96% of it’s insulating ability when wet.
Canada Goose Claim: “While fashion is subject to trends, Canada Goose is not. We have used fur for more than half a century because of its protective properties, not as a fashion statement”.
Who had heard of Canada Goose before a few years ago? Canada Goose is known almost exclusively for it’s trendiness. And that is because of Reiss, not despite him and his supposed efforts to focus on functionality. Reiss spent a lot of time rebranding Canada Goose as a trendy, high-end fashion statement. The actual was business was in trouble when he stepped in in the 90s, and as he explains
“I started out showing these jackets to the kind of stores in Toronto and New York that you now find us in. (Harry Rosen, Holt Renfrew, Sporting Life, Europe Bound.) And the response was, ‘This is a utilitarian jacket. Why would anybody buy this?’ ” Reiss recalls…The company had yet to develop the lighter more fashion-driven categories that now populate its showroom”.
Reiss actually tries to argue that Canada Goose is not, like all fashion, subject to trends? He has even shared that “[t]o seed the market” he “began outfitting the bouncers at nightclubs and ticket scalpers outside the Air Canada Centre. After years of outfitting film crews in remote locations, Hollywood began using Canada Goose jackets on camera”.
Though the imagery is less ‘sexy’ for marketing, the majority of people wearing fur trim do so as a fashion statement. They are complying with a trend, not exploring the Arctic Circle. They are spending an hour or so outside each day, not observing the migratory patterns of Caribou. The fur industry, and companies like Canada Goose, are just trying to sell a story.