Vail Epic Mountain Gear

For Vail Resorts, we helped transform a collection of disparate retail and service brands into one cohesive, experience-driven ecosystem under the power of Epic. While Vail’s mountain resorts were iconic, its expanding portfolio—from retail to transportation—lacked a unified consumer thread. Through deep ethnographic and quantitative research, we uncovered an opportunity to extend the emotional equity of the Epic pass beyond the slopes and into every touchpoint. This led to the creation of a unifying brand platform rooted in the idea of discovering experiences of a lifetime—bringing the spirit of the mountains into retail environments year-round.

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We designed three immersive retail concepts, with “Born from the Mountains” emerging as the clear consumer favorite and the blueprint for future Epic Mountain Gear stores. The concept blended authenticity, resourcefulness, and meticulous craft to create spaces that felt less like stores and more like gateways to adventure. A flexible kit-of-parts system enabled immediate remodels while setting a scalable vision for long-term growth. The result was a connected, elevated brand experience that carried the magic of the mountain into every interaction—before, during, and long after the lift stops turning.