The Move Mountains Initiative by The North Face Highlights the Stories of Adventurous, Courageous Women and Girls to Help Change the Face of Exploration
The North Face, a global outdoor brand, today launched a first-ever global initiative focused on women, celebrating and sharing the stories of adventurous and courageous female explorers.
Move Mountains is rooted in empowering the next generation of explorers and includes a multi-year outdoor adventure collaboration with Girls Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), a platform for sharing more stories of women in exploration, and a business commitment that impacts everything from representation in advertising campaigns to investment in product design.
“We know better than anyone that there are plenty of women out there who are already accomplishing incredible, inspiring things every day. Yet women and girls don’t see themselves represented as ‘explorers’.
“We had a simple theory that if women and girls see more role models in exploration, it will create more female role models for future generations,” said Tom Herbst, Global Vice President of Marketing at The North Face.
The cornerstone of Move Mountains is celebrating stories of women who are pushing boundaries, including The brand’s athletes, alpinist Hilaree Nelson, climbing phenoms Ashima Shiraishi and Margo Hayes, and ultrarunner and activist Fernanda Maciel, in a series of short films narrated by fellow role models who admire them.
The brand is also featuring women who are explorers beyond physical exploration, like women’s empowerment advocate America Ferrera, NASA scientist Tierra Guinn Fletcher, and musician and activist Madame Gandhi.
In an effort to canvas the world with female explorers who are artists, athletes, educators and scientists, the brand is making a commitment to equal representation of women in all advertising, social media and content moving forward.
The brand is also applying the spirit of Move Mountains to its internal business – with an increased investment in women’s product design, renewed focus on employee development and ensured closure of the gender pay gap on the athlete team.
In the US, the brand is expanding the focus of the Explore Fund Grants programme to US$750,000/£532,800, with a new US$250,000/£177,600 grant programme focused on enabling female exploration.
This new annual grant programme will honour Ann Krcik, who was a long-time leader of the brand and one of the founders of the Outdoor Industries Women’s Coalition (now Camber Outdoors). The Explore Fund was founded in 2010 and has given US$2.75 million/£1.95 million to over 500 nonprofits in support of furthering outdoor exploration.
The company is also expanding its women’s product offerings, beginning with bottoms, which the brand is reinventing through compression, core support and vision science. New styles and silhouettes will be available this month in-store and online. Key pieces include the Perfect Core High-Rise Tight, Contoured Tech High-Rise Tight, and Beyond the Wall Free Motion Bra.
The brand will open two women-specific stores in 2018. The first, located in Edina, MN, will focus on the brand’s running and training apparel. The second women’s store will be located in San Francisco, CA and carry all women’s product lines, including running and training gear, mountain and urban focused products.
