Halfdays brings a different idea of skiwear to the Alps We met co-founder Ariana Ferwerda in St. Moritz to talk about the brand's European debut

On TikTok and Instagram, Ariana Ferwerda has repeatedly come across a scene that makes her smile. A girl shows off the Halfdays ski outfit she just bought. Does she have a ski trip planned? No. Has she ever skied before? Not that either. "Our goal is to get more women into the outdoors and make them feel comfortable on the slopes, maybe even for the first time," Ferwerda tells us in St. Moritz. Buying an outfit before even booking a lesson might seem like getting things backwards, but it says something about the relationship between clothing and sport. Sometimes it's precisely a piece of clothing that helps us picture ourselves somewhere we've never seen ourselves before.

Ferwerda had started skiing more often when, in 2019, she met Kiley McKinnon, a former Olympic freestyle skier for Team USA. They came to the same sport from two very different perspectives, but shared a certain frustration with what they found in stores. In 2020, together with Karelle Golda, they launched Halfdays in Colorado with a debut collection dedicated to skiing. "For the most part, major brands design for men first. Then, for women, the pieces get shrunk down or dyed pink, or something like that," says Ferwerda. The problem with pink, for a brand that makes color a recognizable part of its identity, is really a matter of when it comes into play. If it arrives at the end, as the sole indicator that a jacket was designed for a woman, it leaves all the decisions made beforehand untouched — from proportions to fit.

There was another convention the founders wanted to challenge: the assumption that every technical garment must cater to the needs of the most experienced person on the mountain. "We try to avoid overcomplicating things. We wanted to give you the pockets you need and the technical features you actually require, without adding anything extra," Ferwerda explains. McKinnon's competitive experience and Ferwerda's own journey as someone coming to skiing meet here, in the process of deciding which details truly matter. The same applies to silhouettes. Ferwerda recalls skiwear that was often oversized, masculine in shape, and far removed from what she and the other founders wore every day. They wanted mountain dressing to leave room for the same sense of personal style that guides how you dress the rest of the week.

In St. Moritz, where skiing has long coexisted with a very particular idea of style, the conversation turns to vintage cars. "In the early days of Halfdays we were very inspired by old Porsches from the sixties and seventies. We drew a lot from there for our colors," says Ferwerda. Today the palettes also draw from art and the runway. The reference to Porsche helps explain where the brand's visual identity comes from. When looking for a color for a ski outfit, Halfdays looks beyond the wardrobe of skiers.

The European debut, announced on November 3rd, comes at a point when the brand has already expanded its offering into hiking, running, and studio activewear. Halfdays has chosen Zurich as its European base and has appointed Chath Weerasinghe, previously at Perfect Moment and Canada Goose, to lead operations. The collections will be available online with shipping to the European Union and Switzerland, as well as through retailers such as Luisaviaroma and Mountain Air Verbier. You might encounter the same outfit while shopping online or browsing in a store in Verbier before heading up the mountain. And perhaps it is precisely the distance between these two scenes — between the video of someone trying on the suit at home and the moment they wear it on the snow for the first time — that explains the kind of audience Halfdays wants to bring to the mountains.