The outdoor trade show, held in Friedrichshafen each summer, is a good place to spot the best of next year's gear. Much of it is unique to particular brands - the Warp Strength Technology harness is only available from Arc'teryx, for example, and SnakePlate trail shoes are exclusive to TNF - but some common themes also emerged.
So, what's in the plan for almost all the top brands in 2008, and why?
Going Green
Environmental awareness was high on the agenda at this year's show, just as it is elsewhere in the media, and it's given rise to truly weird and wonderful dimensions in the world of gear. Almost every brand had examples on show.
Berghaus led the way by telling us that they're launching day packs made from recycled bottles and shoes made from vegetable tan. Icebreaker soon joined the chorus by showing us their new t-shirt with the logo 'when I've finished with this T-shirt I'm going to plant it'. No need for the recycled bottles for them though - they wasted no time in reminding us that they work with entirely natural fabrics.
GoLite had perhaps the most interesting spin of all, drawing our attention to the 'GoLite on the planet' campaign, which they explained by telling us that if your gear weighs less carbon dioxide is emitted while transporting it.
We haven't done the sums on that one, but there was one thing we did notice about most of the 'green' offerings across the brands: they were an addition to the standard 'outdoor' range, and not necessarily part of it.
We aren't saying that outdoor firms aren't looking at ways of cleaning up the manufacturing process, nor that we're sorry to see environmental awareness high on the agenda. Quite the opposite. All we mean is that the headline 'green' products didn't tend to be designed specially with outdoor use in mind.
The Berghaus vegetable tan shoes are definitely a pair to wear around the town, not up Ben Nevis, and the zillions of pure organic t-shirts floating around aren't exactly prime examples of high-wicking baselayers.
Which brings us to another trend …
Lifestyle
It's no secret that outdoory types sometimes don their Gore-Tex jackets around town and even wear the odd fleece or three to the local pub. Outdoor clothes can be as comfortable when you're commuting to work as when you're slogging up a hill. So, there's no reason why manufacturers shouldn't make garments that cross over between outdoor and town use, sacrificing a few technical features along the way, and knocking a chunk off the price as the payoff.
What's interesting is that top technical clothing manufacturers are greeting technical journalists by highlighting the latest 'lifestyle' clothes as keystones of next year's range. Surely a journalist for an outdoors website is more likely to be interested in waterproofing and breathability than flower patterns and graphics?
Apparently not, if this year's show is anything to go by, and the thinking behind that shift is pretty clear. Yes, it means you can get a combination of fashion and technical features at the same time. But it also means that outdoor brands take in the profits from your urban clothing as well as your hiking gear.
So, are we worried? Well, no, not really. Brands like The North Face went down this route some time ago and they've shown no loss of interest in top-end, technical clothing just because they're clothing the streets at the same time. It might even be a good thing that a greater revenue from 'leisure' wear gives them more to splash out on research and design.
But one thing we will be taking care of is to make sure we've got our technical thinking caps firmly on our heads when we go outdoor gear shopping next year, and a screen in place for all that talk of graphics and colours!
Lightweight goes lighter
In case that all sounds a bit doom and gloom, here's a trend we definitely aren't upset about.
Lightweight's been the new black for some time, and now that brown is the new black, lightweight is the new brown as well - or something like that. And it's getting lighter …
Arc'teryx have got climbing harnesses down to 320g, Inov-8 have brought in 230g trail shoes, Icebreaker are down to 140 fabrics, and GoLite are still, well, going really light. And the gram-shaving isn't confined to a few flagship examples: it's right across the board.
Whether it's the three new 'superlight' tents that Mountain Hardwear tell us they're launching next season or a 22g Petzl safety light, keeping your shoulders as safe as possible from heavy loads is definitely top of the agenda.
Long-distance hikers - or day hikers who could do without the extra grams of waterproof jacket in their rucksacks as they head up that elusive Munro - can only be pleased.
The Details
So much for the overview. If you want the details of next year's technical innovations, here's the story so far, all in one place. Just follow the links to articles below.
