Let's reinvent!

For example, for the 2018 Alpan Way collection, we immersed ourselves in Japanese culture and the “Wabi Sabi” (“the beauty of imperfection”) philosophy of life.

A few years earlier, we traveled to the USA in search of Rock ‘n’ Roll for the collection of the same name. It was a wild adventure in Oregon!

Morocco – we also soaked up the land of the Berbers between the sea, desert, and mountains for The Mountain Nomads 2014. We marveled at Moroccan hospitality and were reminded once again of the power of nature in the High Atlas Mountains. We returned with thousands of stories and well over 50,000 photos for our catalog.

Pachamama – the 2013 collection took us to the mountains of South America, to the high plains of the Andes. On roads that are not roads, to bridges that once were, to bus drivers who achieve extraordinary things, and to people from whom we could learn so much. For the photo shoot in Peru, we pushed ourselves to our limits, made friends, experienced the “Pachamama” philosophy of give and take firsthand, and took away a piece of wisdom: “Cuanto más difícil es, más hay que sonreir” – “The harder it gets, the more you have to smile.” Our bus drivers Miguel and Chumpi taught us this. There was a lot to smile about.

HiSociety. We fondly remember our charity project for the 2012 collection. For one week, we swapped our desks for life and community on remote South Tyrolean mountain farms. There we learned how much effort and love mountain farmers put into maintaining their farms and producing food. “Honor the farming community” – was embroidered in letters above a door. We do just that – and buy only fair trade milk, for example.

For “endless riding,” we headed to Norway in the summer. There, the days are truly endless—light from 3 a.m. to 11 p.m. However, light does not necessarily mean sunshine, as we have learned from personal experience.

We could go on and on with anecdotes at this point. The collections reflect all these unique experiences that we are privileged to enjoy year after year.