Colmar Celebrates Its 100th Anniversary With Short Documentary

Heritage Italian luxury outerwear label, Colmar is celebrating its 100th anniversary as a fashion entity. Over the past century, the brand has continued to evolve, offering technically inclined outerwear pieces designed to take on the brisk alpine elements.

Colmar is now looking back at its creations — along with its design team’s vast outlets of inspiration — through a short documentary that remembers some of the imprint’s proudest milestones; from the cotton suits made for blue-collar workers or gas station attendants to the high-performance ski-wear worn by the Italian national ski team during the 1950s.

The documentary also shows how Colmar’s success over the past 100 years stemmed from the birth of the brand in 1931 in Monza, located on the outskirts of Milan, Italy. Launched by Mario and Irma Colombo — shortly after getting married — the pair decided to open a small hat company that used defective wool felt cones to produce gaiters — a fundamental accessory of menswear design at the time.

Shortly after its inception, Colmar began its venture into workwear, which was launched through a high-profile collaboration with Leo Gasperl, an Austrian-naturalized Italian on a mission to break the speed-skiing world record. Marking the beginning of what would be a continuous connection with athletes and alpine ski champions, the collaboration birthed fresh ideas and suggestions for Colmar to create dedicated products for best-in-class performance.

Now, Colmar — which is run by Mario, Carlo, and Giulio Colombo — is enlisting its fourth generation to create cutting-edge designs for its clientele. With Stefano Colombo — the son of Mario — coming to the helm alongside Roberta Colombo, and Riccardo Vago, the trio will continue to build innovative products — both through Colmar and its three-year-old A.G.E. umbrella — whilst creating established offerings with a contemporary fashion focus on functional and stylish elements for alpine wear.