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On the third floor of an aging industrial building in Brooklyn you’ll find Hikerkind HQ, the design studio and sometimes event space slash pop-up shop of the women’s technical outdoor apparel brand. Here New York City’s growing population of hikers gather to meet, find the best color and fit for their bodies, and chat with founders Chelsea Rizzo and Allison Levy. It’s during these intimate drop ins when Hikerkind’s pillars of thoughtful fashion design, conscientious consumerism, and organic community converge.
And it’s on the color-coded hanging display racks in the studio—and on the Hikerkind website, of course—where lovers of good design and the great outdoors can find Hikerkind FW24 and SS24 collections of performance-driven hiking apparel in a soothing monochromatic palette. Just like the first collection released in 2021, each piece is designed to both function well on it’s own and integrate seamlessly with the rest of the collection.
But unlike the first release, garments are now categorized by outfits and intention: Trail for hiking, Performance for action, and Venture for everyday and travel.
“When we first launched the 01 versions, they were all for a purpose and to create this uniform that was really easy for women to get dressed and feel prepared with the layers and colors,” Rizzo says. “But what we started to think about were the different value propositions that different pieces could provide more so than others.”
The SS24 Collection introduces two new structured pieces intended as a set—Venture Camp Shirt 01and Venture Skort 01—that comprise the newest lifestyle and travel concept. The Performance Base Top 01 and Legging 01 might look familiar but are actually complete redesigns of the previous pieces with a more durable but just as soft material. (“They passed the Velcro test,” Rizzo says.) While 02 versions of the Sun Shirt, Trousers, Shorts, and Midlayer received smaller updates, such as zippered pockets, and are now under the “Trail” concept.
And don’t forget the Hikerkind Trail Socks, made out of an Italian merino wool blend and launched this year as well for the head to toe uniform.
Fans of the Trail Dress will have to wait until spring/summer 2025 for the next iteration in new colors and an updated fit. “She just needed some work and we got such a great response that we wanted to spend the appropriate amount of time redesigning it,” Rizzo says.
The anticipated product launch coincides with Hikerkind’s addition of Hike Clubs in three new cities: Denver, Colorado; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Oregon.
Since their start, the brand has fostered active communities with frequent hiking and pop-ups in their hometown of NYC as well as their satellite location in Southern California. “Our latest club sign up filled up within 30 minutes and we now have hundreds of people on the waitlist,” Rizzo says. “I think it’s because we started here and it’s the longest running—but it’s also because Allison and I know what we would want to see from a hiking community here.”
Each city’s club is led by two community ambassadors to provide that same local knowledge and energy. Some of the leaders, Rizzo says, have even been poking her for years to start chapters in their cities, and their persistence has finally paid off.
This weekend marks the kickoff of the new clubs, with pop-ups in the three cities happening Friday through Sunday. Opportunities to hike and mingle blend together with reasons to shop.
“I like to think that people graduate from Hikerkind Hike Club and go off and do things together,” Rizzo says. “We can be a launchpad for discovery of other people or trails or gear or experiences.”
Published 05-14-2024
Updated 09-24-2024
