OTSDR is a response to the shifting landscape of outdoor culture, an exploration into the unknown, encouraging new ways of thinking, making and creating. The purpose of OTSDR is to move you closer to nature, to strengthen that connection through experiences in the natural world.

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Unifying function and fashion, rugged and refined, craftsmanship and performance, FLOWER MOUNTAIN strives for balance in this world. Their world is in pursuit of harmonizing with nature, tuned to it’s every season, its every ebb and flow, which is reflected back in the curve of every shoe they make – mountains and flowers expressing the beauty found in nature flowing through each of their designs. This is a genuine expression of a Japanese project.

They dedicate their brand to those who refuse to settle for the ordinary.

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ON THE FRINGES OF THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND, IN A PLACE CALLED HARTLAND, EXISTS TWO WORLDS IN ONE: GRIFFIN STUDIO, THE PRACTICE OF JEFF AND KARINA GRIFFIN, INNOVATORS IN TECHNICAL OUTWEAR, AND THEIR HOME AND ECO-REATREAT LOVELAND FARM – A PLACE WHERE URBAN AND NATURE EXIST TOGETHER, INSPIRING A RECONNECTION TO THE VASTNESS OF NATURE AND ITS WILD DRUMBEAT.

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ON THE NORTHERN FRINGE OF TWO CONTINENTS LIES A LAND WHERE HUMANS FIRST DEFINED THEIR SPIRITUAL CONNECTION TO NATURE. THE PEOPLE OF THE ARCTIC EVOLVED A SET OF RITUALS THAT OPENED THE DOOR TO DIRECT AND UNMEDIATED EXPERIENCE OF THE NATURAL WORLD. ARCHAIC TECHNIQUES OF ECSTASY (ATOE) PROVIDED THE PATH TO ACHIEVING TRANSCENDENCE, WHERE IT BECAME POSSIBLE TO WITNESS THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF EVERY OBJECT, EVERY STONE OR BLADE OF GRASS ON THE MOUNTAIN.

BERINGIA IS A PLACE WHERE NATURE COMES ALIVE AND GUIDES US TOWARD EXPERIENCES OF PASSAGE, REVEALING REALITIES SEPARATE FROM OUR DAILY LIVES, THROUGH BRIEF, ECSTATIC INTERVALS THAT BLOW PAST OUR PERCEPTUAL BOUNDARIES. IT’S WHY WE GO TO SNOWBOUND ALPS AND FRIGID OCEANS, WHY WE RUN TO THE HILLS IN PURSUIT OF LOST WORLDS AND SECRET SPOTS: TO DISCOVER THAT WHICH IS BEYOND OUR INDIVIDUAL LIVES, WHAT SHATTERS OUR SENSE OF SELF, WHAT MAKES US SUPERHUMAN. AND ALWAYS, TO RE-FIND THAT LOST MOUNTAIN HIGH.

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From Brooklyn to the mountains, Gensler’s perspective has shaped Vanish into what many now consider the outdoor avant-garde—a platform redefining how we engage with the outdoors.

Q: Could you introduce yourself?

I’m David Gensler, a strategist and designer currently living in New York, working on my brand, Vanish.

Q: Can you tell us about the background of Vanish Outdoor Magazine? When and why did you start it?

It was 2013, and I was walking to an Agenda trade show with the show’s founder—and my friend—Aaron Levant. I had just rebuilt the Leica Camera brand and helped facilitate the sale of Hasselblad to DJI. I was planning to take a break in my career to spend time in nature—fishing, being in the mountains, slowing things down.

The show was filled with outdoor brands like Poler, and something clicked. That night, I dreamt up Vanish as a platform to inspire people to engage with nature. At that moment, I wanted a kind of “Hypebeast for outdoor culture”—but it didn’t exist. So I created it.

At the same time, I was constantly looking at GO OUT magazine from Japan. I remember thinking, I’m either going to have to learn Japanese… or create my own outdoor culture magazine.

Q: You were living in Brooklyn at the time. Will Vanish Outdoor Magazine always sit between urban culture and nature?

Yeah, I spent most of my adult life—and early career—in Brooklyn. I love New York City, but my soul craves nature too much to have both feet planted in the city all the time.

Vanish will always exist between those two worlds. One foot in urban culture, the other in the outdoors—that’s our DNA.

Q: How has the Vanish brand evolved over the years?

For a long time, I was doing it solo. I was involved in other major projects, so I wasn’t fully focused on Vanish—but it was always my main passion.

Over time, I started dedicating more energy to it. I was also spending more time in nature personally, which naturally fed into the brand.

Then in 2017, I randomly met my partner, Dana Gleason, in Bozeman, Montana—and he kind of kicked my ass into gear.

Q: What do you mean by that?

He asked me what Vanish was, and I said, “We are the invasive species of the outdoor industry. We don’t fit in, and we don’t feel like we belong.”

He laughed and said, “You don’t. But that’s exactly why we need you.”

That stuck with me. I took that energy and got focused. We started experimenting—products, brand extensions like FishThing (angling culture), Landscape (hats), and collaborations with The North Face and Mystery Ranch.

In 2019, we partnered with ISPO to launch The Borderlands. It was a massive exhibition—a three-tiered city we built out of industrial scaffolding, featuring brands from around the world that represented our vision of cutting-edge outdoor culture and design.

It was a defining moment for Vanish Outdoor Magazine.

And then, not long after, COVID hit.

Continue the David Gensler Interview. This David Gensler interview explores how Vanish Outdoor Magazine is redefining outdoor culture.

This is Part 1 of our interview with David Gensler, founder of Vanish Outdoor Magazine.

In Part 2, Gensler explores design, authenticity, technology, and the future of outdoor culture.

→ Continue to Part 2 of the David Gensler interview

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Raxxy

Brand: RAXXY
Interviewee: WILLIAM SHEN, FOUNDER / CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Year Founded: 2020
Location: SHANGHAI\MILAN
Website: raxxy.com
Instagram: @christopherraxxy_official

Vanish (V): Can you tell us about your background in mathematics and how it guides your design process?

William Shen (WS): My background in mathematics began early, through competitive problem-solving and advanced training that shaped the way I approach structure and logic. I was involved in high-level mathematical competitions during my formative years, which instilled discipline, precision, and an understanding that every system must resolve itself coherently. That way of thinking has stayed with me. Mathematics trained me to see form as consequence rather than decoration. In my design process, garments are treated as systems: proportions are deliberate, balance is calculated, and tension is engineered into the structure. I don’t begin with emotion or narrative, I begin with logic. When construction is resolved, emotion emerges naturally through clarity and restraint.

V: Your first collection was a radical new aesthetic and departure from most of the fashion industry — how did the market react?

WS: The reaction was polarized, which felt inevitable. When something doesn’t align with established categories, discomfort is often the first response. Some people didn’t know how to read it, while others connected immediately. I wasn’t aiming for instant acceptance, I was looking for recognition. The audience that understood the work did so without explanation, which confirmed the clarity of the language.

V: How do you personally define your design style?

WS: Restrained, architectural, and intentionally tense. Raxxy operates in a space of control, clean lines, precise construction, and subtle aggression. It’s not about spectacle or nostalgia. It’s about precision and presence, about garments that feel resolved yet quietly confrontational rather than loud.

V: What is the design culture like in China today?

WS: It’s ambitious and fast-moving, but still in transition. There is exceptional technical ability and a strong drive to innovate, yet many designers are still negotiating identity through external reference points. The most compelling work today comes from those who stop translating themselves for validation and begin speaking with certainty from their own position.

V: Where are you currently pulling inspiration from?

WS: Architecture, industrial systems, and environments where function dictates form. I’m also deeply interested in human behavior, particularly how people protect themselves, visually and psychologically. Clothing as a form of modern armor is an idea I return to often, not symbolically but structurally. That thinking was central to the show staged on the Great Wall of China in October 2021, where scale, history, and human presence exist in constant tension — a context that mirrors how I consider garments in relation to the body and its environment.

V: What’s on the horizon next for you and your brand?

WS: We’re entering a phase of gradual and considered growth. The Harrods pop-up in January was an important moment of observation rather than affirmation, an opportunity to see how the brand’s language engages with an international audience and a historic retail context, without forcing its presence. From this season onward, together with our European partners, we are expanding wholesale selectively, prioritizing long-term relationships built on shared understanding. Direct retail remains a future step, to be approached with patience and coherence, once the brand is ready to sustain a more direct dialogue with its audience.

V: Is there anything specific you’d like to discuss that we didn’t cover?

WS: It’s important to acknowledge that fashion is never just about clothing. It’s about identity, control, and distance, how people choose to present themselves or remain untouchable. When designers accept that reality, the work becomes more honest. That’s the space Raxxy operates in.

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Rooted in slowness, the practice rejects serial production in favor of singular, handcrafted works—each one the result of a meticulous, almost ritualistic process. Objects emerge through cycles of prototyping and tactile experimentation, where time and intuition shape the final form along with the material itself.

The work draws on historic silhouettes and overlooked archetypes, but not to recreate. Instead, it distorts, reimagines, and repositions the past within a contemporary actualization frame. The artist seeks tension—between memory and modernity, structure and softness, the known and the speculative. In this friction, a quiet transformation takes place: perception shifts.

The practice moves along the edges of what could be called an outdoor avantgarde, which merges fieldwork with fiction, a survival gear with ritual. It draws on the language of expanded sculpture, site-responsiveness, and narrative utility, positioning the wearer not merely as user, but as participant in a lived mythology.

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IN THE QUEST FOR HORIZONTAL GAINS, WE CREATE LINES IN THE LANDSCAPE.

ORIGINATING FROM OSLO, VANCOUVER AND LONDON, PORTAL OFFERS AN ANTIDOTE TO THE SILOS CREATED ACROSS RIDE, RUN, AND HIKE…BRINGING A UNIFYING PERSPECTIVE TO OUTDOOR ACTIVITY. INSPIRED BY MOVEMENT AND NATURE, AND PROVIDING A WARDROBE OF TOOLS FOR MODERN EXPLORERS THAT ARE INTERESTED IN MULTI-MODALITY.

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The line between fashion and angling is drawn tight for South2 West8. From the riverbanks in Japan flows an interconnected approach to fashion and fishing, where the functional beauty traditionally found in angling apparel has become an inspiration for the brand.

For South2 West8 it runs deeper than just their product, every piece of clothing is an opportunity to find a great connection to nature through the experience of the fishing itself – believing that this deep connection observed by an angler in situ bears witness to the changing climate, creating an urgency in some way for South2 West8 to make the most of every cast.

“PERHAPS IT IS THE ANGLER WHO WILL FIRST SENSE NATURE’S SUBTLE CHANGES, AND TAKE ON THE QUIET DUTY OF BEARING WITNESS.”

 

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What is PandaPrank?

PandaPrank consistently pushes the boundaries of traditional design, focusing on crafting one-of-a-kind custom sneakers and unlocking infinite possibilities in sneaker re-creation. We are the first custom sneaker brand in China to receive authorization from Vibram. The sneaker industry produces billions of new shoes annually, while countless wearable pairs are discarded. We challenge this cycle by giving pre-loved sneakers a bold second life. Through deconstruction and hand crafted redesign, we merge streetwear aesthetics with eco-conscious practices – striking a perfect balance between professionalism and innovation, adding profound meaning to sneaker customization.

Why Sneakers?

Using sneakers as a medium, we connect with and engage those passionate about creativity and outdoor culture through outdoor activities. During this process, we noticed that many shoes are discarded due to damaged soles; moreover, some popular models lack outdoor functionality yet are still used in such activities. The sole is not only a crucial component of a shoe but also determines its lifespan. Therefore, we have introduced the PTS system, designed to extend their lifespan, and enhance their functionality. Whether for hiking, climbing, sports, or pairing with everyday outfits, PTS meets your diverse needs.

“Creation Is Creed”

What is the PTS system?

PTS, full name Pro Trekking System, is a set of highperformance structure replacement systems. This system
consists of the Vibram professional outdoor outsole, Anti-Collision toe cap, shock-absorbing insoles, Stable-heel
stability system, Quicklace system, Ultra Rebound lightweight midsole, all originally designed by PandaPrank®. It is
compatible with the uppers of most mainstream brands and is suitable for outdoor and urban environments, ensuring safety and functionality, while also having both comfort and fashion sense.

What’s the process?

Guided by the core philosophy of “Make Some Changes” we consistently push the boundaries of traditional design, focusing on crafting one-of-a-kind custom sneakers and unlocking infinite possibilities in sneaker re-creation. We delve into the richness of local culture, collaborating with hidden masters of intangible cultural heritage to seamlessly blend traditional craftsmanship with modern aesthetics, creating works of elevated value. By partnering with renowned domestic and international brands, PandaPrank conveys its distinctive design philosophy through every creation, presenting meticulously crafted, unforgettable designs.

Explain the connection to nature and sneakers?

Our design inspiration is deeply rooted in outdoor culture, with each custom collection taking outdoor sports as its creative starting point. Whether it’s the visual aesthetics or the selection of customized materials, every element is meticulously crafted to harmonize with nature. For each collection’s campaign shoot, we venture into distinctive outdoor locations, fully showcasing the intrinsic connection between our design craftsmanship and the natural world.

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