Blurring the lines between skiwear, streetwear and sportswear is a dynamic brand that is making an impact on the slopes as well as on the streets of London. Ski with a Q (SQI) has made a jacket that keeps you warm and dry and is also sustainable.  It pulls over your head for a trendy look, which looks effortless. It’s detachable fur trim makes it ideal for snowy climes, while without it it turns into an urban jacket. It has many hidden pockets making it handy to store your purse or wallet, your phone, your ski pass and snacks.

The jacket ticks all the boxes in terms of sustainable fashion, made entirely out of plastic bottles and other materials. It is a brand with a conscience. At the heart of this stylish garment is sustainability. This is an important narrative of our current times, according to the founder Freddy Hoare. His thinking was skiers invest time and money into finding the right apparel that looks good on the slopes, so wouldn’t they want their ski jacket to see more than one or two outings a year?

“The SQI jacket not only looks fantastic on the slopes of all the alpine resorts, but also suitable for everyday wear too. The more uses a garment has over its lifetime naturally makes it more environmentally friendly. People of generation z are passionate about sustainability and it is really important to me to design a jacket that met these needs,” said Freddy.

“Whilst not specific to fashion; my dissertation was about sustainability practices in property. It’s always been something that’s been close to my heart, and I knew if I was going to launch a fashion brand, sustainability was going to be at the core of it.”

As for the story of SQI, it all began in August 2019 when Freddy began building the brand in the days before the pandemic: “We fully started working on it and were in a place we were ready to raise investments by February. Then our factory in China closed down overnight just as COVID began to be a real thing there. They told us they couldn’t trade and at that point, alarm bells were going off in my head. I thought to myself I wouldn’t be able to deliver the product, so we decided to put everything on hold for a year. A couple of weeks later, we see the scenes in Italy and a couple of weeks later the virus was here in the UK.

So, Freddy decided to take stock and pivot and delay the launch. He put everything on hold for a year, went back to another job, got some good experience and continued to hustle on the evenings and weekends.

It paid off. “It was a good move as we found new suppliers that were better and more affordable and it was actually a real blessing in disguise because we had an extra year to learn. In 2021 we launched and haven’t looked back since.”

Freddy told Ski Luxe magazine: “It all began with the search for the perfect jacket. I had about £200 to £250 to spend and I thought, if I am going to spend that much money, I want to get more use out of it than just once a year on my annual ski holiday. I wanted to wear it here at home in the UK. I am a big Fulham football club fan and went to watch a game one wet windy day in the new year, I went to the ground, looked around me and noticed so many people were wearing ski jackets. I thought to myself you would never see those brands do a photoshoot in central London at a big football stadium, that is so out of their comfort zone yet here are their consumers wearing their products in this environment. This got me thinking that there was clearly a demand from customers for a hybrid crossover product that bridges the gap between slopes and the city.

“I really didn’t feel there was a product or a brand on the market to meet this need, so I went about constructing the DNA of “Piste to Pavement” and came up with this jacket. I branched out and took a chance.”

We are called SQI, Ski with a Q, but it also stands for sustainability, quality and innovation – in that order – and those are the three product principles that guide us when we create new products. For our debut collection of jackets, there are lots of things to consider, the fabric includes a waterproof and wind-resistant outer shell that’s made from recycled plastic bottles; quilted insulation and made with 150 grams of recycled polyester and a detachable hood with a faux fur trim. I think the most important one for us is the multi-functional purpose of the jacket. We believe that the most sustainable product is the one you can wear 100 times and that’s why we set out to create a jacket was so much more.”

SQI is a UK brand based in Maidstone, Kent and manufactured in China. “The ski industry has been in a bubble for a while, and I haven’t seen a disruptive challenger brand really take that head on and burst that bubble. That is something we feel is really in our DNA and we would like to shout more about.”

Freddy is a keen skier, and he loves to get onto the slopes in the French and Austrian Alps. His favourite resort is Meribel in the  which offers the best skiing and good après opportunities at venues such as the legendary Rond Point aka Ronnies’. Indeed, Val Thorens and the Three Valleys as a whole are great. He would love to ski in America and Canada. He also has aspirations to visit Japan where you can get the bullet train from Tokyo to Mount Fuji for the real piste-to-pavement experience.

So, what is next for Ski with a Q? Freddy has a lot of plans; we are hoping to introduce lifestyle products next. We have a quarter zip fleece you can wear underneath your jacket. This can serve as a base layer to wear underneath the jacket when you are skiing for extra insulation and warmth; but also is a product where you can have flexible adaptation taking you from ‘piste to pavement’ so you can wear it in your everyday life. Freddy is also planning on introducing some waterproof cargo trousers.

‘Piste-to-pavement’ is a philosophy and lifestyle; and Freddy would like the jacket to be seen on ski slopes and cities around the world. The flagship product is the SQI Jacket 1.0 which is available in four colours. Find out more at here.