Cozy nostalgia

Alpine Revival sweaters embrace retro vibes and modern design

By Kendra Walker

Crested Butte local Heather “HP” Featherman often reminisces about the good ‘ol days when she learned to ski and fell in love with the mountain lifestyle, when the outfits were bold and bright and everything was carefree and fun. “Skiing has been my passion and part of who I am for as long as I can remember. I often look back at the old photos and try to create pieces that feel like those I wore decades ago,” she says. 

Now, her passion for skiing and nostalgia for her ski history has inspired a new endeavor: fashion. She and her business partner AJ Cargill have created Alpine Revival, a small-batch apparel brand that reflects their love of the mountains and skiing and gives a nod to the ski era they grew up in. Specializing in cashmere sweaters, Alpine Revival pieces are “vintage inspired, modern made” with designs that combine the fashionable, retro appeal of the 1970s and 80s with functional, modern design and fabrication.

Skiing is more than just a sport to Featherman, it’s a force that has fostered joy and community her entire life. “My parents met skiing. I grew up skiing every weekend and ended up pursuing a career in ski racing,” she says. Featherman went on to ski competitively and professionally for over two decades. A former national champion and telemark trailblazer, she also started her own company, Ultimate Groove, organizing women’s ski camps and clinics around the world. She has appeared in several ski movies, skied as a sponsored athlete for Marmot and has worked on the design and development of women’s products for K2 skis.

Featherman first experienced Crested Butte’s charm in 1990. “I visited my brother who lived here and fell in love with the mountains and the lifestyle,” she says. Featherman’s drive for skiing and draw to the mountains brought her here to stay several years later, and that passion has kept her here for over 30 years. She has gone on to raise her family in Crested Butte and she sells real estate with Signature Properties Ebner & Associates. 

“My passion lies in the slopes, but I’ve also always had this desire in the back of my head to pursue my love of fashion,” she says. “I love clothes, especially ski clothing. I have an affinity for the retro, bright colors of the 70s and 80s. It’s the era when I learned to ski.”

She decided to join forces with her good friend and fellow ski athlete, Cargill. Featherman says they met at a ski competition in Crested Butte in the 90s and have always bonded over skiing and fashion. “As we began to share our individual plans and desires for a potential clothing line, we realized we had the same ideas. Our Pinterest boards looked exactly the same, we even had saved some of the same photos,” she laughs. “We wanted to bring back that joy and love from the 70s and 80s, and what better way to do it than with an iconic ski sweater. We wanted to take this really cool retro piece and make it modern.”

Featherman says they began working on vintage-inspired designs that embrace the old-school retro styles and bright colors, and updating them with modern luxury fabrics. “We wanted them to evoke that nostalgia that people feel for that old-school ski culture, but with clothing that fits and performs better.”

Featherman says they knew they wanted to use 100% cashmere. “We hired a designer with experience in the knitwear industry to work with us initially and help with a lot of the preliminary legwork. We were lucky to have someone to help us with the research and recommendations. We use a cashmere yarn called Moro, which is sourced from Mongolia, and we’re working with a great producer in China.”

​​They also added a strand of Lycra throughout the garment to help the sweater better hold its shape and perform. “Durability is the biggest problem with cashmere, it’s such a soft fiber,” she says. The Lycra helps it become a much more functional, durable piece. It gives it a little bit of wind resistance. You get the comfort, warmth and feel of cashmere but then elevate it with more functionality. I think they look amazing whether you’re skiing or walking around town for après. You can even throw them in the washing machine, it’s all washable and you don’t have to worry about it shrinking or getting holes like you sometimes get with other cashmere pieces.”

Since launching in October 2023, they have released several more colors and styles in both January and October 2024. Alpine Revival sweaters are available to purchase online, but Featherman says they have also been doing a lot of pop-up events in Crested Butte and Jackson Hole, as well as other ski towns and for ski events. 

Featherman says their focus is small batch. “It’s important to us that we focus on really high-quality fabrics and small batches. She also recognizes that these high-end sweaters come with a higher price tag. “It’s a collectible item, not a throwaway piece. We identified where we wanted to fall in the market and our price point. We cannot get them produced for any less anywhere else in the world,” she says, noting several cost factors that go into starting a new business and the hefty duty and shipping fees with an overseas factory. 

“There’s been a huge learning curve, but overall we’ve been doing so well with the direct to consumer model. AJ and I split the inventory and run the business out of our houses. Every order that comes across our desk is packaged and shipped by us.”

Featherman says she hopes to continue their relationship with their manufacturer and position themselves to eventually increase production and decrease the prices over time.

“We have found so much success in year one, it’s been incredible. People love it, it’s been really well-received. I feel so fortunate to take this passion for skiing and transform it into a passion for starting a business and creating a legacy in this industry I love,” she says. “We live here in a place that puts such a high value on the mountains and outdoors and getting out on those trails and communing with nature. It’s that authentic ski lifestyle and I love being in a ski-adjacent industry that allows me to produce a product that is not only really fun, really stylish and really comfortable, but it also does seem to evoke these nostalgic feelings and emotions of when a lot of us first learned to ski and everything that went along with that lifestyle.” 

She continues, “It’s amazing that a piece of clothing can represent a feeling and those memories that we have. That freedom and joy is embodied in this sweater. My favorite thing has been spending time selling these sweaters at our pop-up events and hearing people’s stories and their memories. They tell me, ‘I had a sweater like this, and it was this color, and this is where I was…’ it’s been a very cool experience. I think the majority of our customers feel that tie to that aspect of skiing that we all thrive off of. That taste for the nostalgia.”