How 66°North Plans to Bring Iceland to the World
At nearly 100 years young, 66°North might be the oldest startup you’ve never heard of.
But that isn’t the case in the outdoor-apparel brand’s native Iceland, where Hans Kristjánsson, a man from the small fishing village of Suðureyri, decided in 1926 to make specialized clothing that would protect local fishermen and search-and-rescue teams from the North Atlantic’s harsh and frequently deadly elements.
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“This was basically in the early days of the last century; there were no weather forecasts and the boats were small and open,” said Helgi Oskarsson, who took over the reins as CEO in 2011. “And the weather has the tendency here in Iceland to change quite frequently—as we say, four seasons in one day—which for the fishermen can be the difference between life and death.”
There isn’t a single person in Iceland who doesn’t own at least one jacket, fleece or sweater emblazoned with Suðureyri’s latitude. Outside of Iceland, however, is a different story, one that 66°North is eager to change.
Oskarsson said he often feels like he’s caught between two worlds. He can be chatting up someone who has been with the company for 40 years one minute and then figuring out how to tackle international logistics issues the next.
“There’s a lot of tradition. The company is extremely well established in many ways, but the fact that we are now expanding the brand outside of Iceland is first and foremost like a startup project,” he said. “And there are a lot of new things we need to learn and certain things we need to kind of unlearn.”
Among the “new things” is Kei Toyoshima’s appointment in November as creative director. Toyoshima previously served as head of menswear at Bottega Veneta and Haider Ackerman and menswear consultant for Louis Vuitton.
Toyoshima isn’t Icelandic, but he gets it. His native Japan is also an island, with an equally large fishing industry. And Japanese and Scandinavian aesthetics have more in common than not with their shared love of clean, minimalist functionality.
“Since I took over the company, I have been trying to move the quality even further up, and kind of into a premium category,” Oskarsson said.
In 2014, 66°North opened its first international store in Copenhagen, a city that was once Iceland’s capital, back when the country was part of the Danish crown, and home to It Girl label Ganni, a regular collaborator with shared Nordic values. It was a way of dipping a toe into the proverbial waters, Oskarsson said. Last year, it decided to make the plunge with a flagship on London’s famed Regent Street. This was its signal that it was ready to be taken seriously.
But 66°North’s Icelandic roots are still very much central to its character, Oskarsson said. For one thing, it still makes gear for fishermen, something that sets it apart from the Patagonias and The North Faces of the world.
“When you’re making clothing to save people’s lives, you can’t compromise on quality and durability,” he said.
And when one caters to a population of 370,000 people for whom the Arctic is their backyard, one’s garments have to be multipurpose by necessity.
“When we design a jacket for ski, we also think about how it can be used for other purposes, like maybe hiking, riding horses or playing golf,” Oskarsson said. “So instead of buying five different jackets for five different activities, you can buy [just] one.”
In a way, 66°North was sustainable before sustainability became a talking point. All its gloves, for instance, are made out of leftover scraps of fabric. The brand has also been providing repairs since its inception. In fact, the mending operation was once its largest revenue generator.
Oskarsson laughed when he recalled attending a conference and hearing someone from Patagonia urging the audience to repair rather than replace their items. He hadn’t realized there was another option.
Repairs have made 66°North a better designer, too. He recounted the story behind its popular kids’ overall, which one harried mother had brought in to be fixed once every few weeks. When the company finally asked her what her child had been doing in them, she revealed that she lived next to a lava field, a common feature across Iceland. That’s when it decided to make a “lava-proof” overall, Oskarsson said. “You can’t live here [and not be] very close to nature.”
In 2022, 66°North became a certified B Corp, making it legally beholden to consider the impact its decisions have on people and the planet. Improving its score—currently 93.5 out of a possible maximum of 200—is the next step, though Oskarsson said that this isn’t a “goal in itself [but rather] a part of who we are and what we should always strive to be.”
This includes honing its carbon goals. Since 2019, the brand has achieved carbon neutrality for Scopes 1 and 2, which account for half of its emissions, as part of its “path to net zero.” Most of its stores already run on clean energy. 66°North is also developing its hybrid and electric fleet, boosting its share of recycled materials with partners like Gore and Polartec (they average 70 percent of its collection at present), and growing a forest in partnership with the Icelandic Forestry Association. Next year, its two owned and operated factories in Latvia, where most of its production takes place, will be topped with solar panels. It also runs a facility in Iceland and contracts from suppliers in China, Portugal, Romania and Sweden.
Oskarsson said that negotiating between sustainability, performance and durability, such as with the case of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, otherwise known as PFAS, can sometimes be tricky, but that 66°North works with the “best and most environmentally friendly fabrics that are available in the market.” He recalled that five years ago, the company produced a biodegradable sweater that it proudly advertised with a picture of the garment on one side and dirt and a zipper on the other.
“But the thing was that the fabric didn’t last,” he said, adding that people were complaining about the sweater falling apart a few months into its use. “And so oftentimes, it looks really good on paper—it, you know, tells a better story than something that pollutes more—but eventually you end up with a worse case against the environment because you need to produce much more, because it doesn’t last.”
Nevertheless, natural materials are a big part of 66°North because they are a big part of Iceland. Think, for instance, Icelandic wool from Viking-bred sheep or Icelandic eiderdown from the nests of wild birds. A lot of the answers to the world’s problems, Oskarsson said, can likely be found in nature. It’s just up to science to figure them out.
66°North is eyeing the United States for its next launch. There used to be several stockists that sold its garb, but Oskarsson ended up withdrawing them because he didn’t think the brand was being “very strategic about it.” Oddly enough, the U.S. has been its biggest online market—or perhaps not so oddly, since Americans are Iceland’s largest tourist demographic.
“And so we are now starting to think seriously about moving into the U.S. market,” he said. “And one of the things that we will be doing is opening a store. I can’t say exactly when that will happen.”
As to where, Manhattan is a good bet. There, 66°North will serve as an ambassador of sorts.
“We often like to promote what we call the Icelandic art of living, and what do I mean by that?” Oskarsson said. “The Icelandic art of living is basically a life without limitations. We live on a very small island but we don’t limit ourselves even though we are kind of isolated in the North Atlantic Ocean. We like to explore the world and then, when we come back home, we like to reconnect and we do that in touch with nature. And I believe that is a really important message to the world.”
