The North Face was founded in 1966 by Douglas and Susie Tompkins, at the time husband and wife. While today one of the world’s foremost purveyors of outerwear, The North Face started as a small retailer stocking mountaineering and climbing gear in San Francisco, California. The couple named the store after the coldest and most unforgiving side of a mountain: literally, the north face. Two years later, in 1968, the fledgling company was acquired by Kenneth Klopp, who relocated The North Face to Berkeley. Under Klopp, The North Face started designing and producing its own apparel and equipment.

Throughout the ‘70s the brand emerged as a favorite among outdoor aficionados and introduced skiwear to its offering as the decade wore on. Expanding The North Face’s apparel offering was important, but the brand’s legacy was cemented in 1975 with the introduction of the Oval Intention tent, a geodesic dome that set the standard for lightweight mountaineering equipment and established TNF as an influential player in the market. By 1978, the company had reached the point of signing licensing and distribution deals in foreign markets. That year, Goldwin Co. acquired the exclusive distribution rights for The North Face in Japan, where it is one of the most important conglomerates in activewear and fashion. We’ll get to that story in a bit, though.

In the 1980s, with The North Face entrenched as one of the brands of choice among skiers and alpinists, the Californian company introduced a range of extreme skiwear, which was followed by the launch of the expedition system line in 1988. These extreme weather lines would come to be hugely influential in The North Face’s evolution throughout the ’90s and ’00s and would spawn the Summit Series line, among others.

Odyssey Holdings acquired The North Face in 1988, after which the company invested heavily in equipment, but couldn’t keep up with demand. As a result, The North Face wasn’t capable of meeting orders on its books and was faced with a revenue shortfall in the face of rising expenditure. In 1993, Odyssey Holdings filed for bankruptcy for The North Face. The following year, the company was sold at auction to a group that would eventually be named The North Face, Inc and would guide the brand back to profitability. It would also set the brand up to change hands again, joining VF Corp.’s portfolio of brands in 2000—if the VF Corp. name sounds familiar, it is also the parent company for the likes of Vans and Timberland, among others.

Despite the bankruptcy in the early ’90s and the wheeling and dealing that followed, The North Face emerged as a veritable cultural force in addition to being a high-performance mountaineering brand. The same year the company filed for bankruptcy, 1993, The North Face’s Steep Tech jacket appeared on Method Man and the brand became a favorite among youth in New York. The trend extended across the Atlantic, where The North Face became synonymous with a certain breed of hard-nosed young men. Thomas Gorton, Digital Editor of Dazed explained that, “In Merseyside […] if a crew of guys dressed in black North Face got on [the bus], nine times out of 10 we’re in trouble. Nine times out of 10 the lads wearing North Face are gonna win, too.”

Embedded among the youth and embodying a certain status, The North Face has spawned some of streetwear’s most iconic jackets. While collaborations, limited releases, and specialized product have all made their mark, the mainline Nuptse has arguably been the pre-eminent puffer on the market since the ’90s. Its ubiquity is a testament to the power of The North Face’s main line and proof that even without any of the below diffusion lines or special projects, The North Face would still wield considerable clout.

While technically not a distinct arm of the company, The North Face’s collaborative projects deserve some attention when it comes to defining the brand’s many identities. The ’80s saw important developments for The North Face. In 1986 the brand quietly unveiled what would be one of its first collaborations—if not the first—that, in 2018, would dwarf its ongoing partnership with Supreme in terms of cultural gravitas.

That year, a tech company from the Bay Area launched an ultimately short-lived clothing line that included vests made in collaboration with The North Face, touted by the tech company as making “some of the toughest products in the world.” The tech company in question? Apple. While the vests didn’t have a profound cultural impact at the time, it did sew the seeds of collaboration within The North Face.

Starting with the 1986 Apple collaboration, The North Face has developed a reputation of working with some of the best brands and minds in their respective fields. The brand’s most popular collaboration, with New York skate brand Supreme, has been a staple of the latter’s collections since 2007. Prior to that, though, some of the brand’s diffusion lines are the product of collaboration between the outerwear titan and individuals, whether they be athletes or designers. Collaboration is, and has seemingly always been, a integral part of The North Face’s DNA.

The North Face has also emerged as a favourite among high-end Japanese designers (owing, in part, to the brand’s prestige in Japan) and has led to collaborations with the likes of Junya Watanabe and Sacai in recent seasons—though, it should be noted that the Watanabe x The North Face partnership extends as far back as 2006.

At the other end of the spectrum, the VF Corp. brand has developed a strong track record of collaborating with its stablemates. It has released both mainline Vans and Vault by Vans collections that included footwear, bags and apparel, as well as a recent collaboration with Timberland on boots and jackets that blended iconic elements of both brands.

Ultimately, The North Face’s extensive portfolio of collaborations typifies the brand’s multiple identities. It is a reference for everybody from the most directional Japanese labels to the most mainstream American brands.

Most looking at The North Face through a fashion lens will associate Steep Tech with Supreme, thanks to a recent collaboration. Others—though fewer in number we would imagine— will recall a Steep Tech jacket in the Method Man music video. The Steep Series does not have its roots in streetwear, though, but in another field dominated by rabid fans: Extreme skiing, or steep skiing, if you will.

In the mid-’90s, Scot Schmidt was to powder what Michael Jordan was to hardwood. Working alongside Schmidt, The North Face created Steep Tech, the first-ever athlete-inspired skiwear line. The brand was born in 1991 and became the reference for skiwear in the ’90s, before being discontinued in 1998 and then revived shortly thereafter to the delight of East Coast retailers.

Steep Tech set the bar in terms of utilitarian outerwear, but also pioneered a distinct aesthetic that made it a cult favorite. Funky colorways, myriad pockets and intricately placed straps and buckles gave Steep Tech pieces a look unlike anything else on the market.

While Steep Tech remains an integral part of The North Face’s performance outerwear offering, it’s the original gear that has made the most indelible mark on the brand’s history and current trajectory. It has influenced collaborations with Supreme, yes, but it has also offered inspiration for fashion-centric diffusion lines like Urban Exploration and Black Series, which look to archival The North Face. Among die-hard fans of the Californian company nothing will ever beat ’90s Steep Tech—fans of the original offering are, well, fanatical, and there is a good market for archival Steep Tech pieces.

Arguably the most important of The North Face’s diffusion lines as far as actual performance outerwear is concerned, Summit Series was officially launched in 2000 by the brand’s Research & Development team. The original goal of Summit Series was to create unparalleled product for adventurers to brave the most unforgiving conditions.

Over its first decade of existence Summit Series gradually expanded to include more product. Perhaps it was a bid to appeal to more customers—to give more people access the very best mountaineering equipment and apparel—but the end result was that the ethos of Summit Series was lost by the time 2013-2014 rolled around. “The original concept was to make a mountaineering Alpinist kit that met the needs of climbers who were pushing the limits,” The North Forth VP of Global Product Joe Vernachio told Cool Hunting, adding that when the company hit the reset button on Summit Series, the range “was being used to help segment the market as opposed to meet[ing] climbers needs.” Summit Series was relaunched in 2015 and now exists as a smaller collection that focuses on six layers of clothing. In total it aims to be the simplest—but most advanced—climbing kit possible.

While some of the puffier 6L (sixth layer) jackets, or the sleek, water-repellant 5L shells end up making appearances in fashion editorials and boutique retailers, nobody at The North Face sees Summit Series as being a fashion-first diffusion line. Rather, they’re thinking about making gear for people climbing Everest. It must be funny for them, then, when pieces like the Himalayan Suit, from this season’s Summit Series offering, end up garnering attention from the fashion world. In fact, the brand has made a concerted effort to pull Summit Series from fashion-first retailers in recent seasons. Ostensibly, the brand’s motivation is to make clear that Summit Series is for climbing, while also paving the way for wider distribution of other diffusion lines.

You’ll recall from our overview of The North Face’s mainline that, in the late ’70s, Goldwin Co. acquired the rights for The North Face in Japan. That has essentially allowed Goldwin to create a standalone The North Face in Japan, independent of the American brand’s direction. The most impactful result of Goldwin Co.’s Japanese licensing, though, is that it gave rise to a Japanese-exclusive lifestyle diffusion line: The North Face Purple Label. If Summit Series is about developing the most innovative performance alpinism gear, then Purple Label is about presenting that technology in a casual, easy-to-wear collection.

If you’ve been perusing menswear-related blogs, the diffusion line has undoubtedly graced your screen at one point. Eiichiro Homma was a veteran technical designer for Goldwin Co. in 2003; the conglomerate afforded him the opportunity to launch his own label, nanamica, as well as a lifestyle-centric collection for The North Face in Japan. That collection would become The North Face Purple Label. What’s interesting is that the sub-brand was created not out of a desire to expand The North Face’s market share, but, rather, to offer product that better represented how people were already wearing The North Face in the country.

Homma explained to Hypebeast that, in 2003, “Before we launched Purple Label, all [The North Face] garments which were worn as city wear looked exactly the same as outdoor gear.” The goal with The North Face Purple Label was then, “to adapt [The North Face] for city wear without compromising the core values of the original.”

While not necessitating the same technological innovation as the performance-geared line, Homma has insisted that The North Face Purple Label remain committed to the utmost quality over the last 15 years. That, coupled with the diffusion line’s unique pieces, has made The North Face Purple Label a favorite of menswear aficionados worldwide. The label’s use of eclectic prints and more liberal color palettes, have added to its popularity, which together have drawn attention to the diffusion line.

Ultimately, The North Face Purple Label was created to service a niche Japanese market in 2003. In the ensuing decade and a half, thanks in large part to the internet, it has come to represent the cool side of The North Face for those outside of Japan. It’s the collection that we North Americans and Europeans can’t get our hands on—or at least struggle to get our hands on—after seeing the latest lookbook drop and thinking, “Wait, The North Face did that?”. It’s why The North Face Purple Label has been one of the brand’s most valuable assets over the last few years—despite not officially being part of The North Face’s stable in Europe and North America.

Like Japan, Goldwin Co. holds the exclusive license to produce and distribute The North Face in South Korea. Building off the success of Purple Label, White Label was launched in 2014, as a lifestyle diffusion line for South Korea.

And, much like the story of The North Face Purple Label, White Label’s origins lie in the popularity of The North Face mountaineering outerwear in among South Koreans. Aided by the growing popularity of alpinism in the country, The North Face pieces—particularly the iconic Nuptse puffers—came to be ubiquitous among urban youth. Conscious of the brand’s two-pronged identity in South Korea, Goldwin Co. created White Label. The diffusion line’s design director, Christian Lee, sees White Label as being complementary to The North Face writ large. “We need to have two hunters to hunt two rabbits at once,” he told Hypebeast, “White Label is the second hunter to The North Face, and its creation was inevitable in order to remain an authentic outdoor brand while coping with the changing market.”

Like Purple Label, White Label has always had a decidedly preppy and more polished menswear DNA. If you think about it, White Label is for true product nerds—meshing thoughtful product design and a distinct, minimalist aesthetic with cutting-edge technology. That has won White Label fans beyond South Korea’s borders. Concessions on the part of The North Face and Goldwin Co. have been few and far between, as far as exporting it is concerned—the brand remains a South Korean exclusive, with the exception of some select stores across Asia that carry Purple Label and White Label outside their home nations.

But, that being said, the success of White Label proved that Purple Label was not a fluke: lifestyle-oriented The North Face gear was a sustainable proposition across different markets. In that respect White Label and Purple Label have profoundly marked The North Face outside of Japan and South Korea.

The emergence, and ensuing success, of the Asian lifestyle diffusion lines pushed The North Face to create Urban Exploration, a global imprint positioned squarely in the lifestyle-fashion realm. Few, if any, diffusion lines have launched with an opening salvo quite like The North Face Urban Exploration.

Urban Exploration debuted in 2016 in the Shanghai and Hong Kong The North Face stores that carried White Label and Purple Label. By 2017, The North Face Urban Exploration was ready for its closeup and was introduced—to most people, at least—through an attention-grabbing collaboration with mastermind WORLD](https://hypebeast.com/2017/4/mastermind-world-the-north-face-urban-exploration-2017-collection). Alongside the Urban Exploration collection, The North Face also introduced a new range of lifestyle-focused concept stores that have sprung up in different countries over the last 18 months.

In some respects, Urban Exploration became what Summit Series never should have become before it was put on hiatus—a higher-price-point collection that offered thorough segmentation for The North Face and came to be adopted by non-climbers. Urban Exploration allows The North Face to offer higher-end product designed for urban living, without comprising the Summit Series line or gear that is designed with climbers in mind.

But, because Urban Exploration is a project evolving on a global scale, it has proven to be less focused—and less consistent—than the other Asian diffusion lines. Outside of the mastermind WORLD collaboration, Urban Exploration has been a tad bit underwhelming with the notable exception of…

Maybe the mere existence of Black Series is indicative that The North Face has gone overboard with their diffusion lines and sub-brands, creating a puffy, down-filled ouroboros: Black Series is an offshoot of The North Face Urban Exploration. Yes, that’s right, a diffusion line’s diffusion line.

While Urban Exploration is lifestyle-driven, Black Series is hyper-focused on tech-savvy urbanites. Originally limited to The North Face’s Urban Exploration concept stores, Black Series has recently popped up in some of the brand’s top-tier retailers—the likes of END. and SSENSE—positioning the line alongside other high-end techwear brands. On the whole, though, it remains a borderline European diffusion line, with the lion’s share of retailers found on the Old Continent.

Even if Black Series doesn’t provide a massive boost in sales figures for The North Face and VF Corp., what it does provide is invaluable marketing for the brand and a foothold in the fashion segment. Look no further than the most recent Black Series collection, a series of Japanese-designed Tyvek pieces that seemed drawn from a NASA-issued wardrobe. It was eye-catching and, like Purple Label and White Label—the inspirations for Black Series—raised at least a few eyebrows and challenged people’s expectations of The North Face.

It might seem like The North Face has lost its way with all of the diffusion lines and sub-brands. But proper segmentation and hyper-specific product offerings are an integral part of the brand’s history, dating back to the 1986 collaboration with Apple and the 1991 debut of Steep Tech. Perhaps there are too many different lifestyle diffusion lines—Purple Label, White Label, Urban Exploration, Black Series, not to mention the host of collaborations—but they all exist independently of one another, at least in principle. At the very least, it gives The North Face the flexibility to kill one of the many sub-brands without pulling the plug on the larger brand if the mountaineering trend takes a downturn. Figuring out which line a piece comes from can be convoluted at times, but, most pieces we lust after wouldn’t even exist without the diffusion lines and hyper-segmentation.