At twenty-one years old, Line Skis can cheers to a job well done. They’ve kept their stride strong and rooted through two decades in an ever-changing, malleable ski industry. They’ve secured themselves as one of the top-five brands with the strongest sales YOY, and have maintained that boutique feel, consistently attracting the core skier.
“If you’re just one brand pushing for change in an industry, then you’ll be spinning your wheels forever,” says Josh Malczyk, global brand director for Line. “So as more brands pop up, supporting the kind of skiing we love, it validates what we’re doing at Line and raises that passion overall.” In other words, competition is good.
Malczyk, taking over the brand direction after Founder Jay Levinthal left, believes the brand’s core heartbeat has remained strong because of its athletes. “Our athletes have the vision, they’re out there, and it’s crucial for innovation.” When Malczyk took the lead as brand director, he says it was important for him to act as more of the guy “pulling the strings in the background” rather than acting as figurehead.
“Our athletes have the vision, they’re out there, and it’s crucial for innovation.”
Areas of that innovative ethos were seen in some of the athlete-driven product Line showcased at SIA this year. The “Pescado,” meaning “fish” in Spanish, is the newest addition to their line-up and borrows shaping themes from surfing and snowboarding. “Eric Pollard is the prophet when it comes to modern ski design,” says Malczyk, and as the designer on the Pescado, Pollard’s fish-shaped design is a different approach to ski shapes. “[The Pescado] has been in development for two-to-three years,” says Malczyk. “We know we’re not going to sell large volumes of these skis but it’s definitely a testament to the brand.”
On the freestyle side, Line just picked up Tom Wallisch as an athlete. “Wallisch is bar-none when it comes to freeskiing, and he’s incredibly involved in product design.” Malczyk described Wallisch’s incredible amount of precision and detail when it came to designing the pro-model. “He knew specifically what kind of swing weight he wanted and even knew the price-point he preferred for his ski. He knows his consumer so well, so it helped.”
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