Erika Canfield, who was promoted to CEO of Turtle Fur effective August 1, spoke with SGB Executive about Turtle Fur’s legacy on the ski slopes as well as the brand’s moves to expand beyond winter gear into year-round lifestyle and performance accessories.

Canfield joined Vermont-based Turtle Fur in October 2022 as part of a new management team after the brand’s sale to Camano Capital. Previously, she was VP of Global Marketing at Carbitex and VP of Marketing at Outdoor Research and held marketing roles at Stanley and Aladdin.

SGB: How did Turtle Fur get its start?
Erika Canfield: Turtle Fur was founded in 1982 by single-mom Millie Merrill, in the basement of the children’s clothing store she owned, The Yellow Turtle, in Stowe, Vermont. Millie was (and still is, in her 80s!) an avid skier and saw an opportunity to make skiers’ lives warmer and more comfortable. She invented the fleece neck warmer and dubbed it the Turtle’s Neck, which has become a staple in the kits of skiers and snowboarders around the country. Since launching the original neck warmer, we have expanded into other ski and lifestyle accessories, with our lifestyle collection now being our fastest-growing collection.

SGB: Who is Turtle Fur’s traditional customer? Are you trying to reach a newer audience?
Canfield: Turtle Fur has been known and loved by skiers and snowboarders for over four decades, with people often telling us that they’ve had their Turtle Fur neck warmer for years. We love that; it’s a pillar of ours to make sustainable products that stand the test of time and use. We also love the enthusiasm for our brand, of our consumers who have known us for decades. We want to extend that brand love and enthusiasm to the next generation of people who love spending time outdoors, beyond the ski slopes to the trails and to town. We were founded by a woman and have primarily been a female-driven brand. We see an opportunity in the market to lean into this and serve the female outdoor lifestyle consumer with accessibly priced, high-quality accessories that offer as much style and self-expression as the comfort and function we’re known for.

SGB: What plans do you have to keep the core winter business growing?
Canfield: Winter is certainly at the heart of who we are, and we see a big opportunity in winter lifestyle accessories. In Winter 2023, we launched a new collection of both lifestyle and ski products, featuring a high-pile, fluffy fleece material that we call Comfort Lush. This has been our fastest-growing collection in both ski and lifestyle categories. We offer kids’ items in this material as well (our bunny and bear-eared overhoods being fan favorites). The Comfort Lush bucket hat, tort style hat and overhood that fits over a ski helmet have been our big winners. The consumer feedback we hear is that people love the softness and warmth of the material, and the styles that help them stand out from the crowd. This winter, we are launching more styles, more colors and have a fun and buzzy campaign for Lush launching – I can’t divulge much, you’ll have to keep an eye on our social media for that.

SGB: Is Turtle Fur making any changes to its distribution?
Canfield: While we are committed to growing our business across our heritage core channels — specialty ski, resort, sporting goods — we see a bigger opportunity to broaden distribution to specialty and large outdoor and lifestyle retailers. We have a strong DTC business that far outpaced the anemic DTC market last year, and we have a strong e-com marketplace business, both of which we will see continue to grow over the next few years. We believe we have a sizeable opportunity for growth here in North America through our focus on women and lifestyle, although we are looking at when an expansion to wider international markets is right for us.

SGB: How are you set up to handle tariffs?
Canfield: We were impacted by the tariff roller-coaster, as were many in our industry. The impact came not only in the financial burden it’s causing all along our pipeline, but also in the time and resources we needed to dedicate to navigate the situation: the monitoring of the ever-changing tariff landscape, market intel, running various financial scenarios as tariffs changed and developing and communicating our approach, tracking and monitoring the impact. We chose to honor our pre-season pricing to support our customer base, and implemented small, strategic increases to wholesale and MSRP pricing to minimize the impact to our customers and end consumers.

SGB: Where do you see the growth opportunities over the next 3 to 5  years?
Canfield: Turtle Fur has a small but loyal following on the ski slopes and with people who have known about us for decades; over the past 40+ years, the brand has been very quiet in the marketplace with very limited investment into marketing and brand building. To achieve meaningful growth, we need to be louder, prouder and expand that love and loyalty to a new generation of outdoor enthusiasts. With the investment of Camano Capital, we will be laser-focused on being consumer-obsessed, building buzz in the market to drive demand, nurturing new and existing customers through community building and consumer participation, and expanding our wholesale distribution in the US. We are in an excellent position with a strong operating platform and positive consumer sentiment – now we get to pour gas on the flame that was lit by Millie 40-plus years ago.

Images courtesy Turtle Fur