Town Hall Outdoor Co was founded in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, by real parents who wanted better, more sustainable choices in kids’ clothing. Coincidentally, they also had many years of experience in the outdoor apparel industry, and tapped into their expertise to create apparel specifically made for kids. At the dawn of this new ski season, we sat down with co-founder Robin Hall to find out how it’s being done.
Tell us a little bit about your background in the industry?
I moved to Colorado in 2003 for a job at Vail Resorts in Finance. Following a few years there, I realized I wanted to get back to feeling and touching product and had fallen in love with the outdoor industry. I noticed a job at Smartwool in Steamboat Springs, CO at their headquarters and was lucky enough to get the job and move our little family to the Yampa Valley. Having five roles in 11 years at Smartwool was quite a beautiful ride and I learned deeply about the industry, outdoor apparel and passion-based, purpose-built brands. When the brand announced its move to Denver in 2018, our family of four couldn’t leave Steamboat. We had to give back to this community and keep outdoor industry jobs and knowledge in the Yampa Valley. So two other passionate guys in town and I co-founded Town Hall and we launched in the summer of 2021.
What does this brand mean to you?
To me, this brand means everything. It means hope, hard work, inspiration, partnership and family. For this community that we’ve gathered around us, I think it means passion, fun, a warm hug and a high five. We make durable, high quality gear and are helping to build a healthier planet. We want kids to love outside, whether that means catching snowflakes on your tongue or ripping park laps. Everyone is welcome at Town Hall, for the love of the planet and the love of community.
Why kids apparel? Why now?
The planets collided when Jay Lambert and I, both with deep histories in the outdoor industry, came together with a savvy entrepreneur, Joe Solomon, in Steamboat and founded Town Hall in 2020. Between the three of us, we have 6 kids under 16 who love to get after it outside. We wanted a better choice for our kids’ apparel. For so many brands, kids’ apparel is an afterthought; often a cheap, shrunken-down version of adult gear. We wanted to use our years of experience in outdoor apparel to create a new standard in outerwear, built specifically with kids in mind. Kids aren’t mini-adults. They are full-size versions of themselves, who need clothes built around their unique needs. Durability? That’s paramount. Our designs and brand are deeply rooted in ‘kidsumer insights’ and our mountain town kids are informing and testing every decision we make, to ensure they love it and it lasts. We’re all about building quality gear that lets kids find joy in the outdoors, and stay warm and comfortable while doing it.
How will you differentiate yourself?
Alongside our deep connection to community and the planet, our products and designs set us apart from the few, other kid-focused, domestic gear brands in the space. Designed and tested deep in an outdoor-rich community, we make purpose-built and fresh designs that are made to last through hundreds of adventures outside. Our color blocking, color pallette and ‘I-Spy-Stripes’ are unique, forward-thinking and appeal to a wide range of kids and adults alike. At one of our first Kidsumer Insights sessions in 2020, when asked what they were looking for in a ski jacket, a 14-year-old promptly said ‘I just want to be able to find my friends on the mountain….and my mom does too (with an eye-roll).’ And with that, the I-Spy-Stripes were born. Our first season, we deliberately chose colors that were gender inclusive so that every kid felt comfortable in our gear and when an older brother was ready to Hand-Me-Up their gear to their younger sister, she would be delighted to wear it too. One year in, we heard some feedback from the little gals that they wanted some more feminine colors, so we obliged. We top off our fun colors and designs with supreme durability and thoughtful, functional features, like magnetic closures for small, mitten-covered hands and pit zips, which not many kid jackets have.
What are you doing to get more kids outdoors or to make winter sports more accessible?
We want every kid to love outside. And, to be honest, it is very uncomfortable for us to produce ski/ride jackets that cost $195, despite being right in the middle of the going rate for kids’ outerwear and due to production costs with sustainable materials. So, we have created a more approachable piece in the Around Town Cold Weather Jacket ($155) that has more warmth, but fewer ski/ride features for that kiddo in Chicago who walks to school in the mornings and skis a few times in the winter. In addition, we are launching a formal Hand-Me-Up program next year where kids can return jackets that they have outgrown and we will help ensure they get into the hands of kids that need them for a more affordable price. We have developed deep partnerships with great organizations that help more kids get outside – Integrated Community in Steamboat Springs and Boys and Girls Club of NW Colorado. We have sponsored a Steamboat Soccer Club team, helped teach young women how to mountain bike with the Cycle Effect and give time and effort to the SOS Outreach, which provides youth with powerful outdoor adventures and mentorship.
What makes designing for kids challenging or unique?
Kids tell it like it is and we love that. ‘That color is ugly. I would never wear that. This is soft and cozy. Can you make this pocket bigger to hold my stuffy?’ In our ‘Kidsumer Insights’ sessions, we rally big groups of kids sitting on blankets in the park with lemonade and trail mix and ask them gobs of questions – what jackets they like and don’t like, what features they need and don’t need, how they shop and their thoughts on climate change. That informs every decision we make and then we have them test the heck out of it in our backyard in the Rocky Mountains. Kids are tough consumers – they are rough on their gear, the young ones are not often on social media (thankfully!) and the acquisition cycle is shorter. We welcome them to the brand and then they grow out of our apparel. But, we build our gear with grow seams and extra durability so they can get more wears out of it and they are encouraged to pass it along to a friend, after writing their name on the Hand-Me-Up label. Perhaps due to all of the nuances of making solid kids’ gear, we truly feel that kids haven’t been served well in the past. Parents want to stay outside and play all day and nothing ruins a family fun day like a cold, wet child. So, we are finding that by making long-lasting, feature-rich gear, kids and their parents are having more fun outside, for longer. We live in a unique little community in the mountains and we’re honored to get to design gear for kids who love to be outside, whether walking in the alleys to school with friends or skiing the local ski hill under the lights on a Friday night. All in all, designing for and working with kids is a complete joy.
What are you doing to offset your environmental footprint?
When we started Town Hall, sustainability was a guiding principle and we continue to deeply invest in ensuring that we are doing the right thing for the planet with every decision we make. We use recycled materials in all of our products, from the zipper pulls to the down in our puffies. Our Mountain Town Winter Jacket is made with roughly 98% recycled materials – the only trims that aren’t recycled are the waterproof zippers, snaps and velcro (and we’re working on those!). We practice responsible packaging and handling as well. We don’t ship from the factory in polybags, don’t automatically apply hangtags and if you live in Steamboat, chances are that our kids will deliver your order on their bikes. We have a five-year Sustainability Strategic Plan which we are tracking to and next in the plan is assessing certifications so that we can better measure our impact and develop a baseline to improve in the future. We are constantly evaluating our impact on the planet, both with consumers and our partners. As far as offsetting our environmental footprint, we know that buying carbon offsets can sometimes be taboo. But, the truth of the matter is that we are creating a product and there will be an impact on the planet. So, our goal is to get as much greenhouse gas emission as we can out of the supply chain and daily operations, and then buy offsets in a very Town Hall community way – investing in riparian measures along the Yampa River, getting a team of kids to plant trees in northwestern Colorado, etc. We give 3% of net revenue per year to community and sustainability efforts. In the future, we intend to not only offset our impact on the planet but go above and beyond by giving more than we take and being Planet Positive.
