Finding inspiration behind the dogs

Stephen Copp grew up surrounded by the mountains of the Indian Himalayas. At the age of ten, his parents moved back to Sweden and settled in Hålland, just outside Åre. There, he began snowboarding at an elite level before eventually shifting his focus to developing technical clothing. We meet Stephen at his studio in Undersåker to talk about product development and garments made to last.

Both of your parents are from Sweden, yet you spent your first ten years in India. How did that come about?
“My parents worked as missionaries in India. We lived in a mountain village in the Himalayas, about 300 kilometers north of New Delhi. Or rather, we lived at a mountain station in what you might call the foothills of the Himalayas. The village functioned as a trading hub for the surrounding communities.”

Today you work as a freelance clothing product developer. How did you get into that field?
“When I stopped competing in snowboarding, my wife and I moved to Västerbotten, where she attended a folk high school. I worked as the outdoor manager at a Stadium store in Skellefteå, and after two years we moved to Stockholm. My wife had been accepted to Konstfack, and I worked for a year in another store before I found my education. I had become interested in how products are developed and saw that there were many alternative solutions that could have been better.

I applied to an engineering program called Innovation and Product Design. I did my thesis project for Lundhags—though at the time it was called Almgrens. After that, I started working there. First as an assistant, and after a year I became product manager. After six years in that role, Lundhags decided to move their headquarters to Stockholm, and I was laid off since I didn’t want to relocate. That’s when I started my own business.”

Had you been thinking about starting your own company for a long time?
“No, not at all. I didn’t have any plans for it. But I found myself in a situation where I had to figure out what to do, and that’s where it landed. I was on parental leave for the first six months, which gave me time to look for clients and sell my services.

In the beginning, it was very stressful. About three months before finishing a project, I would start looking for new work—and most clients wanted me to start immediately. That meant juggling two projects at once for three months. It took several years before I felt secure enough not to start searching for new work too early.”

What is it like working as a product developer?
“I had a somewhat romanticized view of what the job would be like. Sure, you get to work with product development—but very few people get to focus solely on that. There’s a lot of production-related work and problem-solving as well.

Designing the collections is the easy part. There’s so much else that needs to fall into place, and it’s easy to underestimate that side of the work. The biggest challenge in product development is creating a product that’s good enough at a price the market is willing to pay. That’s the part I’ve always wanted to focus more on.

I enjoy the creative phases, but I’m very function-driven. Often, product development—especially in fashion, sports, and outdoor—starts with a color palette. To me, that’s a strange way to begin. A product doesn’t perform better just because it’s yellow instead of green. You don’t stay warmer depending on the color of the garment. That’s something I really appreciate about Woolpower. The only time color really matters is when visibility is important.”

As someone who works with developing functional outdoor clothing—how do you think about materials and sustainability?
“My basic mindset is that it’s better to produce one T-shirt that lasts ten years than five that last two. If you make high quality from the start, you don’t need those extra four.

Biodegradable base layers are becoming very popular, and the idea is great. But if that means they only last a year, then we have to produce a lot more garments. A blended fabric with synthetics loses some of its biodegradability, but increases durability fivefold. So which is actually better? That’s an ongoing discussion. I lean more toward making clothes that last a long time and can be repaired, rather than focusing on breaking them down into soil.

Shell garments can be just as sustainable—or even more so—if made entirely from polyester. With membranes on both the outer and inner fabric, you can now create really high-quality pure polyester products. That gives you a garment that lasts a long time and can be fully recycled at the end of its life. When you have a product that both lasts and can be recycled, then you’ve succeeded across the whole chain.”

When did you first come into contact with Woolpower?
“I usually say I wish I had discovered it earlier—back when I was snowboarding—because it would have made my life so much better! But I bought my first Woolpower garment when I stopped snowboarding and started skiing with dogs. When you’re mushing, you constantly shift between being active and warm to standing still and getting cold. In those conditions, nothing beats Woolpower.

If you looked purely at function, Woolpower would be unbeatable on the market in my opinion. There’s no better material for base layers when you consider weight, warmth, and performance. But people are vain, and at some point many choose a worse product just because it looks better. A Woolpower sweater can feel a bit loose and start to pill. But if function was all that mattered, I’m convinced Woolpower would have a monopoly.

But you have to try it to understand. I remember one time driving a training cart late in the autumn. There was no snow yet, but it was close to -20°C. I usually wear just a pair of Long Johns 200 with wind pants on top. But for some reason, I added another pair of long johns of the same thickness. It got insanely warm—almost uncomfortable. I actually had to stop and take off the extra layer. I knew they were warm, but I was genuinely surprised.”