Designer Spotlight : Burning Snow Designer Lights a Fire Under the Market for Boarders’ Apparel

If necessity is the mother of invention, then Burning Snow designer Mike Snyder can be considered a parent in the development of snowboard apparel. His line of outerwear enables hard-core snowboarders to keep warm while still looking hip.

Snyder, 27, entered the market a year after his first chilling snowboarding experience on the slopes in late 1986.

“Most people were stuck wearing ski clothes,” Snyder says. “But ski wear just doesn’t cut it.”

They didn’t prove functional and, he says, many fellow snowboarders “didn’t want to look like idiots in ski clothes.”

Snyder left his steady job at Maui & Sons and, with partner Dan Flecky, started Burning Snow. The name’s hot-cold polarity reflects the utmost of snowboarding action. “I ride for six hours straight, and by the end of the day my legs are burning. But I’ll still have that icy feeling,” he says.

Having dissolved his partnership with Flecky last year, Snyder hooked up with Katin, the legendary surfing trunk maker. Katin was bought two years ago by Bill Sharp, a former editor at Surfing magazine, and Rick Lohr, a designer who worked as a sales representative at Body Glove.

Sharp says that many ski-wear companies are cashing in on snowboarding without any real interest in producing gear that proves functional or captures the soul of the sport. “They try to copy us, but it still looks mainstream.” That, he explains, is not what participants of alternative sports such as snowboarding, skateboarding and surfing want.

“A lot of the companies that jump in don’t know the dynamics of the sport,” Sharp says.

Snyder designed the waist of the pants to go higher in the back because, planned or not, snowboarders spend a lot of time on icy ground.

He also reinforced the seat and knees of the pants with waterproof patches. For further comfort, removable Velcro knee pads were added, as well as cinches on the bottom to hold down pant legs around boots.

“Snowboard pants need to come up higher than (average) snow pants, and the jackets need to hang lower,” Sharp says. Snyder took the poncho silhouette, a longtime surfer wardrobe staple, and developed a version for colder weather. He also altered the oversize flannel shirt, a favorite among the surf-skate-and-punk set, and insulated it with a nylon/taffeta quilt.

Shell jackets and pants are made of a light tactel nylon, a popular fabric used in the ski industry because it offers greater durability than Suplex.

In a field where function dominates fashion, silhouettes change only slightly, and Snyder has witnessed competitors copying his color choices. At recent trade shows, store buyers have been pleased to see Snyder’s new palette of gem colors, such as scarlet red, plum, beet and topaz, versus the earth tones everyone else is doing--which he introduced last year.

Black will always be the main color, Snyder says. He avoids neons, still used greatly for ski gear. “I don’t want to make clown suits,” he says.

The collection features seven outerwear pieces ($65-$280), logo-emblazoned T-shirts ($15-$21), sweat shirts ($35) and beanies and caps ($12).

Outside the United States, Burning Snow has catered to the growing snowboard market in Japan for three years, and next year Snyder hopes to expand into Europe and Canada.

In Southern California, Burning Snow is available at Hobie Sports in Dana Point and Oceanside; In Flight, Seal Beach; ET, Hermosa Beach; Green Sector, Tarzana; Zuma Jay, Santa Monica, and Bear Mountain, Big Bear Lake.

Snyder entered the surf industry at 17 as a member of the Quiksilver surf team. A year later he found a job at Quiksilver, and within a year he went from shipping in the warehouse to assisting the head designer. He learned sample production, then moved on to handle full collection production.

At 22, he left to work at Maui & Sons with-then head designer Jeff Yokoyama, who is well-respected in the industry for his innovative surf fashions. Snyder fine-tuned his skills for 1 1/2 years before breaking out on his own.

Sharp, who handles promotion for Katin and Burning Snow, says that they’ve also been able to maintain an edge over competitors by promoting what he calls “a naughty image.” That means a snowman logo wincing in pain because his stick arms have been torched, or a lighted dynamite stick serving as a candle on a white-frosted cupcake.

“Think of us as good-natured subversives,” Sharp says.