One time, on a photo shoot for J.Lindeberg clothing in British Columbia’s storied Selkirk Range, I had the pleasure of sharing a helicopter with three Swedish acquaintances: photographer Mattias Fredriksson, with whom I’d travelled widely and worked on various projects over the years; Sverre Liliequist, a former pro racer, big-mountain freeski superman, knitter of funky beanies and frequent ski model; and Stefan Engström, co-founder of Peak Performance clothing and, at the time, CEO of J.Lindeberg.
I knew Fredriksson as a solid skier—you’d have to be to shoulder the size of pack he did in those days and survive — even if it meant doing less skiing than those in front of his camera. Having nailed the requirements of the shoot the previous day, however, that morning he’d let it rip, whooping through the powder like an unleashed husky (one of which he would later acquire and, of course, now reminds me of him). Liliequist, as usual, was out to make the mountain his own, barreling down everything at subsonic speed, consuming terrain like a road grader and always looking to see what could be found on the ragged edges.
Engström, in contrast, was all control, with a smooth-as-butter style that never wavered regardless of slope angle or snow conditions. He literally flowed down the mountain, each turn a bow drawn exactingly across a string to strike the correct note. Though I’d worked with him, we’d never skied together. And what struck me most that day wasn’t how good he was or how annoyingly stylish he looked in every moment, but what the quiet smile on his face at the end of every run said about the man — he was a cat who’d eaten a very big canary, and one who clearly loved skiing.
Growing up in a Stockholm suburb, Engström first took to the slopes, as he puts it, in the “pre-Stenmark era.”
“There were 2,000 people in my school and maybe two of them skied. But there were a few small ski hills around Stockholm and snow back then, so I started skiing around nine or 10,” he recalls.
As Swedish racing phenom Ingemar Stenmark rose to prominence, eventually posting three straight World Cup titles from 1976-1978, skiing exploded in Sweden and Engström rode the wave. His parents had purchased a ski cabin in the resort of Salen, to which the family retreated each weekend. It was here, age 15, that Engström discovered freestyle. Like so many other skiers of the time, it changed his life. That summer he journeyed north of the Arctic Circle to the ski area of Riksgränsen, where legend-to-be Swedish ski photographer Felix S:t Clair-Renard and Canadian Stephanie Sloan (later three-time world freestyle champion) held annual freestyle camps. These bacchanalian conclaves came to be known the world over through S:t Clair-Renard’s famous photo of Sloan and Peter Buchar throwing a hand-in-hand daffy wearing only denim shorts. In was in this heady milieu that skiing became Engström’s top priority, and in 1976 he started competing in moguls.
“I was the only Swede on the circuit before freestyle disciplines were included under the FIS umbrella,” he says of what was considered an unofficial World Cup. In the 1980-1981 season, FIS finally gobbled up freestyle and Engström hung in until 1983, reaching the podium half a dozen times, winning two events, and finishing second overall in his final season.
Though he’d planted firm roots in skiing, he’d always taken inspiration from art, design and business, and felt it was time to explore those interests. “I was only 23, and I’d been competing because I loved skiing and winning a race was my biggest dream,” he says. “But after a couple of wins competition lost its attraction. I still loved skiing but the financial upside was too small — so I quit.”
Friends of Engström’s had started SOS — the outerwear brand that sponsored the freestyle team — and they offered him a job. With an eye for clothing and fashion from a young age, it seemed a natural fit. “It was a small company, so I was fortunate to be involved in everything, including working with the designer,” he recalls. “Production was still in Sweden, so it was a crash course in learning everything about making and selling sports apparel.”
When, inevitably, SOS moved production to Asia in 1986, Engström saw an opportunity. Thinking he could wade into this business himself and use the old factory, he and a partner designed a small collection and pre-sold it to 30–40 stores in Sweden. “Then the factory called to say it was bankrupt,” he chuckles, the balm of time having soothed what felt like a knock-out punch to the young, first-time entrepreneur. “We had a line but nowhere to make it,”
That might have been for the best. In what was to become a recurring theme in his story, Engström leaned into the value of connections and partnerships. A friend of a friend had a factory in Portugal, and they managed to produce the line there. Peak Performance was born.
With little going on in Swedish outerwear at the time, Engström had made two critically important choices: a fresh, innovative design and the use of Gore-Tex — a first for a Swedish brand. Sales took off, doubling in each of the company’s first six years. Despite the runaway success, underfinancing and inexperience brought them close to bankruptcy several times. “It was actually pretty stressful,” he acknowledges. But after a successful IPO in 1996, Peak sold to a moneyed Danish group in 1999 and became a globally recognized brand, sponsoring a raft of events and high-profile skiers from World Cup racers to progressive freestylers in the nascent Park and Pipe scene. Engström cruised through the glory years, but by 2007 he’d reached a crossroads.
“I’d been with Peak 20 years and still held shares. But approaching age 50, it was either stay put the rest of my life or do something else,” he says. “I was contemplating alternatives when J.Lindeberg came onto my radar.”
Founded in Stockholm in 1996 by Johan Lindeberg, the man who turned Italy’s Diesel into one of the world’s hottest denim brands, J.Lindeberg was a fashion-house vision, an international brand for the modern, aware and active consumer. Its collections showed at prestigious fashion weeks around the globe, its garments showcased by some of the world’s best athletes and biggest celebrities. When a ski collection debuted alongside the regular Fall/Winter 2005 line in Milan, the biggest splash was the brand’s new face — Swedish freeskier Jon Olsson, the Bjorn Borg of new-school skiing. More concept collections rapidly appeared — swimwear, sunglasses, shoes, belts. But it was too much, too fast. By 2007, decreasing profitability put pressure on the relationship between Lindeberg and major shareholders. The company was a mess, a solid brand still lacking basics like delivery and quality control. It was just the project for Engström.
Partnering with the investment firm Proventus — a value-driven supporter of contemporary artistic, cultural and social endeavors — Engström was installed as CEO. “The company was almost bankrupt and their style wasn’t really my cup of tea,” he says. “So we did a ‘full renovation’ so to speak — increasing margins, streamlining the business, and adding a new ski collection that was quite successful.”
Having turned the company around, the partners sold their interests in 2012 (again, to a Danish concern), though Engström stayed on in various capacities. Indeed, it was January 2015 that we’d skied together on the J.Lindeberg shoot mentioned at the outset, at a heli-ski operation he’d invested in called Stellar Heliskiing.
The previous year, Engström had journeyed to B.C. to look at an historic, family-owned cat-ski operation that was up for sale. He liked what he saw — plus the thousands of acres of powder it came with — and made a down payment. A few months on, however, the seller decided he’d like his son to stay on to run it. Uninterested in getting involved a family enterprise, Engström backed out; while there, however, the operation’s lead guide mentioned a heli-ski tenure spanning the Purcells and Selkirks he’d acquired and was starting to explore. It was kismet: Engström partnered with Björn Algkvist — an old friend from his freestyle days — to get Stellar Heli up and running.
Based in the remote hamlet of Kaslo, there isn’t much to do but ski — and plenty of time for contemplation. Always fascinated by digital online opportunities, on an early trip to Stellar, Engström’s mind turned to how that world provided new options to re-think the outerwear game. Soon enough, an idea for a direct-to-consumer brand took shape in conversations. “The first name for Stellar Equipment was actually ‘Selkirk Equipment,’ which I liked better,” he recalls. “So, it took me a while to get used to Stellar.”
Specializing in technical clothing for skiing, mountaineering and hiking, Stellar was built on the principle of performance layering, immediately gaining recognition for its technical approach, sustainability practices and use of innovative fabrics. Like previous Engström involvements, the market was ready and the brand took off.
Because the launch overlapped with the end of his work at J.Lindbergh, this time Engström was a silent partner with Fredrik Dahl and John Crawford-Currie. Dahl, a designer he’d worked with on-and-off since the Peak days, had followed his own brand journey through Haglöfs, The North Face and J.Lindeberg, where Engström brought him in to design the ski collection. Crawford-Currie, a graphic-design savant and virtual idea factory who’d worked on many a branding initiative, had overseen one of Engström’s pet projects, award-winning Peak Performance Magazine. “When the Danes took over J.Lindeberg in 2012, Fredrik and I both felt we would leave at some point to do something together,” says Engström. “We also felt Europe was a bit behind in online fashion, and that it was actually possible to build a brand that way. Social media channels were still strong so that was helpful for market reach.”
The biggest advantage, however, was cost, and they had no trouble selling a premium product at an attractive price by cutting out distributional middlemen and the hassle of annual collections and brick-and-mortar showrooms. Stellar was also much lighter on the design and development front — with tighter, more focused lines and a smaller team with greater agility.
Engström worked with Stellar in Sweden a few years before moving permanently to Zermatt. He’d built a new house, was skiing a lot and still involved in the business, but changes in the online world were worrying — it was getting more expensive and warehousing was an issue. His perspective began to shift on how to build a long-term, sustainable company, so he dropped out of Stellar. Unsurprisingly given his history, a growing hunger for the next thing soon began to gnaw.
“I was contemplating what to do and figured if I could get a Gore-Tex license I’d do one last project,” he says. “Then one day [Austrian skier and two-time Olympic gold medalist] Marcel Hirscher called and said, ‘I heard you’re doing something — can I join?’. He’d just finished ski racing and was looking around as well. We joined forces, got some investors and launched The Mountain Studio.”
Bringing his wealth of experience to the project, Engström hopes to find the perfect retail combination of high-end brick-and-mortar plus online. “In Europe, there are still some good clothing stores that it’s possible to use to help build a brand. So, in order to find that perfect combo we’re back a bit to the old way of doing things. But on a much more premium level — small team, few wholesalers, no sport chains or mid-market stuff.”
A formula for another legendary brand? Only time will tell.
The Mountain Studio credo is to wed performance outerwear to modern Alpine and Scandinavian design — projecting style, sustainability and the mountain lifestyle. That last remains paramount to Engström; with over 40 years in the business, he’s watched the lifestyle in which he immersed himself increase its global cachet, and feels a need to nurture it properly. “I’ve always loved the spirit of ski towns — the combination of passionate skiers and moneyed people in the bigger resorts is a really creative environment,” he says. “Everyone loves mountains and skiing but I’m more interested in their eternal nature than what’s popular — even though the lifestyle has become fashionable in a way. I was in Shanghai a few weeks ago and there was a five-story Arc’teryx museum with a 40-minute wait outside. The people lining up don’t really ski but they love the spirit of it.”
To trace the kind of lofty arc through an industry that Stefan Engström has, you’d have to truly love something at its core — because there were doubtless times where it was the only thing that kept you at it. Though a beach house in Portugal allows him to surf, and he does plenty of biking — both contributors to his notorious level of fitness — skiing remains the most important pursuit. In Zermatt, it’s a mere two metres to the slope from his house, and most days he’s out for a couple of hours the minute the lifts start turning. His kids also love to ski, with all involved in the ski business — including a son who has followed him onto the World Cup scene as a GS skier on the Swedish National Alpine team.
If the apple doesn’t fall from the tree, then the tree also doesn’t stray far from its roots. “All the reasons that got me into this in the beginning are the same reasons that keep me motivated now,” he says.
No wonder he skis with a smile on his face.
