Colmar X Van Orton: A splash of color for the slopes

Italian brand Colmar has teamed up with the innovative design house Van Orton for a flashy, ’80s-themed outerwear line that will definitely be turning heads on the slopes this season. Meet the Colmar x Van Orton collection: not designed for fans of subtlety.

If you haven’t heard of them before, Van Orton Design is the pseudonym of Marco and Stefano Schiavon, twin brothers from Rivoli, Italy whose design work have been featured by many international brands. Their instantly recognizable graphics channel the twins’ 1980s upbringing and pop-art sensibility, and they’ve scored hits with their “stained glass”-style alternative movie poster renderings of classic ‘80s films like Back To The Future, Terminator and Gremlins.

“Working with Colmar has really been an enormous opportunity,” the Schiavon twins said in a statement. “It allowed us to experiment a new type of approach to our creative method. We usually develop our design on a uniform blank page. But this time we applied the geometries directly on to predefined section which together, went to form the visual of the pieces.”

With their limited edition Colmar line, Van Orton now take on the world of sportswear with a signature jacket, fleece top and T-shirt. The jacket is technically sound, utilizing waterproof and breathable fabric bolstered by a water-repellent, eco-friendly Teflon EcoElite™ finish, while details like a powder skirt, helmet-holder hood and Recco® technology make this outerwear suitable for high-alpine adventures.

The men’s and women’s fleece designs feature an instantly recognizable Van Orton skier rendering on the chest, while the T-shirts take a Van Orton twist on Colmar’s classic “In case of snow…” graphics from the 1970s, with a design inspired by the triangle-shaped signs warning motorists to use snow chains, as well as a pop-art twist on the Colmar “C” logo. We'll put it this way: there's no way your friends are going to miss you, whether in the lift line or at the après bar.

“These two young and successful graphic designers have succeeded, with their virtual and pop style, in creating an extremely entertaining, young and colorful mini-collection, fully understanding our style combined with the attention for performance, thanks to continuous research and innovation,” said Colmar’s CEO and creative director Giulio Colombo. “We have always been committing to studying new projects and facing up to this challenge has been exciting for us.”

Check out the full collection at on Colmar's website.