Cordova, the women's luxury alpine brand founded in 2016, launches its first men's collection this season: nine silhouettes across 21 styles, priced from $160 for accessories to $1,980 for ski suits. Founders Jane and Cody Seim confirmed the rollout through a curated set of wholesale accounts and the brand's own e-commerce platform.

The debut line spans ski jackets, pants, one-piece suits and knitwear. A ski jacket in waterproof Italian wool retails at $1,350, with matching pants at roughly $900. Puffers carry price points of $1,000 or $1,400 depending on fabric. Most materials come from Europe or Japan, a sourcing decision that signals longer lead times and higher input costs than Asian-milled alternatives, and one the founders have absorbed rather than offset with lower construction standards.

How did Cordova build its distribution?

The brand launched in 2016 with 120 women's ski suits sold online. Roughly six weeks later, Selfridges made contact. Matches and Net-a-porter followed the next year, and the wholesale base expanded to include Mytheresa and Moda Operandi. That decade of channel building gives the men's launch an existing retail network, but the founders have deliberately kept the debut narrow.

"We wanted to be balanced," Cody Seim said. "We chose some of our top boutiques in places like the French Alps and Courcelles or Aspen or Japan. Digitally, we chose to work with Browns Farfetch to carry online only, and in the U.S., Forward is carrying the men's line. We wanted keep it curated to begin with before we show it during Paris market in January."

The Paris market presentation in January marks the next milestone for buyers. Until then, distribution stays limited to a handful of ski-region doors and two online partners.

What drives the product strategy?

Cody Seim frames the men's line as a response to a decade of direct customer demand. "The demand has been incredible, and we've been focused on women for the past 10 years," he said. He positions the collection against a menswear ski market he views as homogeneous, where technical performance dominates at the expense of design distinction.

"We've been blending fashion and performance for demanding environments and a demanding customer base for 10 years, and it took a while to build that craft and that trust," he said. "For me, as a lifelong skier, not only am I tired of wearing other brands at this point, but like when Jane started women's, I think there's a big regression to the men's. Everything is very tech-driven."

Jane Seim, a photographer by training with an art degree, built the original women's line around the tailored aesthetic of the 1960s and 1970s "winter jet set," working with a patternmaker in Vancouver. The men's line applies the same formula: performance construction with tailoring references, what she calls a "timeless sensibility" with a "hint of nostalgia."

Who is the customer?

The target buyer skis and pays luxury prices for it. Neither founder came from fashion. Jane Seim grew up on cross-country skiing and snowboarding; Cody Seim skied downhill. Neither had a background in apparel when they identified what they saw as a gap in the women's alpine market a decade ago.

The brand name carries a personal history. Cordova is a town in Alaska where Jane Seim's family spent summers, and the logo derives from Mount Eccles nearby, whose rock formations form an image known locally as the woman on the mountain. Her older sister died in a car accident while driving from Crested Butte, Colo., toward Santa Fe. "My mom said, 'That's my lady on the mountain,'" Jane Seim said of the peak that became the brand's mark.

Whether the men's line replicates the women's trajectory — from a 120-suit online debut to a multi-retailer luxury business — will become clearer after the January Paris market, when the founders plan to widen the wholesale footprint beyond the initial curated doors.