Donald Schneider: On many occasions, I helped brands to get rejuvenated, to create a path forward, or to get to the next level. It has always interested me to one day try that ourselves. Then we found this exceptional opportunity and decided to go for it. For me, I have been in different roles in fashion, but mostly on the communication side. That’s what I know quite well, but the rest is complex and going into this venture, it’s a very steep learning curve, it’s really a lot of learning by doing.

Claudia Hofmann: I studied fashion design in the early 90s, then I worked for outdoor performance company Bogner, so I have this technical heritage. After that, I freelanced as a stylist for magazines like Vogue, GQ, Elle, but also Burda, and Wallpaper* when Tyler Brûlé founded it. I also worked for brands like Chanel or Jil Sander. And co-founded the first e-commerce site in Germany, STYLEBOP.com.

DS: Well, in the last maybe seven years, Claudia and I have been very interested in the integration of technical wear, outdoor wear, performance wear, into everyday fashion. A bit how sports conquered it 20 years ago. Today, everybody’s wearing sneakers. That was not normal 20 years ago, but now it is. We see exactly that potential in the mixing and intertwining of fashion and outdoor performance. We’ve seen it growing a lot in the last years. I myself have tried to convince outdoor brands to do a fashion collaboration. But I was a bit too early and they didn’t understand it because in the outdoor world, fashion was a bad word.

CH: I believe in outdoor sport because coming from high fashion, working in this field for over 15 years now, I see outdoor as the new street style. Similarly to how street style organically became a big thing in fashion. Celine established it to wear flats on the catwalk. Prada established it to wear sneakers on the catwalk. For me, now it’s outdoor since it’s super performance and the clothes are also practical. Our proposition is we want to make it super stylish so you can wear it not only for the outdoors, but also in your everyday life. Outdoor clothes are so technical and have such long-term durability that you keep them nearly forever. The style aspect is important so you want to wear them forever, too.

DS: Yes. When you talk about Switzerland, where I’m from, or Germany, or the DACH region with Austria, people really go skiing. It’s a big sport. But up until recent years, you would only wear the gear for skiing and put it away when you come home. It is only recently that you see people also wearing it in the city. I mean, there was always the odd person walking around with a Mammut or Jack Wolfskin jacket, but it’s not normally young, cool, hip people. North Face became popular within the last 10 years.

DS: Also in the last years, you can certainly see the trend that high fashion brands are doing ski wear. Like Moncler, but also Balmain, Balenciaga, and Jil Sander. But it’s outrageously expensive.

DS: That’s the question. Maybe there are some which are performance-based or on a good quality level, but I think most of them are more kind of for show. They just have that look, but they’re not really made for skiing. Like, you look good when you’re up in a ski resort or here in London or Paris in the street, but I doubt that all of it really holds up.

CH: ELHO is literally building clothes for Olympic athletes. It’s for a really, really high level of performance. Andri Ragettli is a world champion freestyle skier and Zoe van Essen is a 17-year-old upcoming talent. If they qualify, they will be wearing ELHO at the 2026 Winter Olympics. As our brand ambassadors and professional testimonials, they test drive our products and give feedback on what they need to perform at their peak. For example, our fabrics have a really high water column of 15,000 to 20,000 millimeters.

CH: It indicates the level of water resistance. Usually, 10 is okay, 15 is super, and we also have 20,000. That will keep you dry in heavy rains. It’s not water repellent, it’s waterproof.

DS: Andri is one of the best athletes in freestyle and slopestyle – I read a statistic that he’s the one in the history of slopestyle who has been on a podium the most out of all athletes. He’s amazing and he likes ELHO, too. The look is important to him, but it’s not just the look that he likes. For him, it needs to have that quality level. He’s very, very critical – it needs to be good, he needs to be able to perform. He needs it to work in all weather, all conditions, and for all his movements and everything. So for us, that is, of course, the ultimate test, because he goes skiing and is out there every day. If they last with him and with that heavy duty usage, then they’re good.

DS: When I moved to New York in my early 20s, I started working at this nightclub called Area, in the art department. That was the hot spot, it was an amazing time. I met a lot of interesting people there and Jean Michel Basquiat was a regular. We actually put a big couch in the men’s bathroom for him to hang out. He really is still one of my absolute favorite artists. I think it’s just amazing, his work feels so contemporary still, after all that time.

DS: I sometimes think maybe Basquiat is a bit like the James Dean of the young generation. He fits that kind of New York coolness, street style, the diversity factor. And he’s a brilliant artist, with crossover with music, he was also a DJ, and he was into fashion, he was really way ahead of his time with that mix. The output he had, he did so much great work, with his own kind of symbolism and his own expression and everything. He developed a whole language. And even today, every time you see a Basquiat, it doesn’t feel nostalgic, it really feels contemporary.

DS: Yeah, I think now it became more mainstream to do that, but back then that was really unique. It wasn’t a trend. He was just being himself. He walked a Comme des Garçons show, he was always very stylish, but he had his own unique style, barefoot with a suit, painting on the suits… He really was totally unique.

DS: I was thinking who our second art collaboration could be with, that it has to be something quite bold, quite striking. And it shouldn’t look like Basquiat, but it should also have that kind of contemporary art and street style vibe. That was important. And there are not that many artists known for doing that.
I’ve known André for a long time and we like each other a lot. I think there is this joy and happiness to his character, Mr. A. It’s fun. But when you look into it more, you can get more layers, there’s more depth to it. For example, it’s a happy face and a happy color – it’s nice even for people who have no idea who André is, it’s poppy and eye-catching. But also for us, ELHO has a history of colors, colors were always in the DNA. So, working with André was great, with his signature pink and Mr. A’s cheeky wink.

André Saraiva: Donald is an old friend of mine. We met back in the days when he was the art director of French Vogue and stayed friends ever since. We love to reminisce about our fun days in Paris, but we also like to talk about future projects and share our visions. So when he invited me to collaborate on ELHO, I was very enthusiastic. Since he knows me so well, he gave me carte blanche, and I sprayed directly onto the pink bomber jackets they specially made for our collaboration.

DS: We wanted to do something special with André and we had the idea that that’s what a graffiti artist does: he live paints. I mean, that’s what they’re good at compared to maybe a traditional painter who can rework a painting for months and months… A graffiti artist does it very quick. It’s more like Chinese ink drawings or something like that. It’s about doing it fast and running away, historically. So I thought it would be nice to do have him spray directly on 10 jackets, where he can just improvise and do whatever he wants on them.
So we flew to his atelier in Lisbon and had a great afternoon with him and his girlfriend, it was just fun. And I really love all these jackets because each one is so different. Just watching him do that, it really shows you the strength and the power of graffiti. If you make a mistake, it’s there, that’s it. To watch that is so beautiful, that sort of concentration and precision. A traditional artist can paint over and over again, they can change it or correct it. But here it is what it is, whatever he paints in these three, four, five minutes, that’s it. I love that and I really feel it fits us, because Freestyle is our second name. We are actually registered as ELHO Freestyle. For us, Freestyle is very much of a state of mind. And I think these 10 jackets are kind of the ultimate expression of freestyle, on a jacket. I love that and that it’s handmade and it’s special.

AS: In graffiti, freestyle means you don’t follow the strict rules of an alphabet or the straight lines of a letter. You just follow your instinct and let it guide you into making an abstract painting.

AS: My practice of art has always been about painting on all surfaces. I come from graffiti, that’s what we do. We paint on everything, as if the world were an infinite canvas. I try to go through life with a wink and a smile, like my alter ego Mr. A. For me, it’s about reaching more people and spreading Mr. A’s cheeky approach to the world. Clothes should make you feel good and happy, and serve as protection from the grey outside world.

DS: We also documented each one of them being painted. He did one upside down and one of Mr. A freezing. It was all very spontaneous, also putting other symbols on it like hearts and other elements. I like it, it was a great moment, to be there and that energy and the friendship and the celebration and doing something different. I think it’s not something fashion houses would usually do.

DS: I like that a lot. What we do is these pieces are supposed to last long and it’s performance quality so when you buy a jacket from ELHO, you’re going to have it for many years.

CH: Yeah, so besides durability and longevity which is one aspect, we also try to maximize the use of bio-based materials. For example, we use Italian recycled wool for our fleece pieces and our wool and cashmere blend beanies. Wool is a natural high-performance fiber. It keeps you warm, breathes incredibly well, and thanks to its natural water-repellent qualities, it even handles light rain effortlessly. Our new Astro down jacket is filled with recycled down and feathers from old duvets and cushions. Of course, these are animal products, but we are reusing what already exists instead of letting it go to waste and driving new production. In any case, we don’t use new feathers, no animals are harmed in our process.
Same with the fabric. If we can’t do 100% bio-based, we’ll do combinations. For example, the ski jackets are like 40% out of corn. For us, it’s also important that we dye on a natural base. We can’t achieve the super extreme neon colors that ELHO was known for back in the day without using toxic dyes. So our new neon is bright and – most importantly, non-toxic. In total, we try to do our best to get there.

DS: I think success is the good moments when we get excited feedback. That’s when we feel we’re on the right track; when we hear from people who like it, it makes us happy. It’s a really nice feeling that we are getting somewhere, that we are reaching a niche, because we believe in that niche and we believe in that crossover between fashion and performance, and that there is a room for it. When people see it the same way, that is really great.

CH: It is really great to see our products in the cities and in the mountains. It’s nice to see that it worked out, that people do wear it all year long. It’s really nice to see that people have adopted the concept and are now using outdoor for fashion.

AS: I’m always looking for new and high-performance gear. I’ve always had a soft spot for cool performance wear, it goes back to my early hip-hop days. The new ELHO is high-tech and fresh. It will keep you warm and stylish. I love the neon pink bomber jacket with the black Mr. A on the back. It combines my two favorite things: Mr. A and pink.

DS: In terms of what’s next, this is just our second winter. In the first winter, we decided to focus on Germany, Switzerland and Austria. But now we are already doing a bit more – we are in a shop in Stockholm which is the best outdoor concept store in Scandinavia. And we can ship to all of Europe with our online shop. The next step would be to ship throughout the whole world. But these things take time. In December we will start selling at the new multibrand concept store Chapters in Milano. Which is great because Milan will be the center of winter sports with the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. So we’re very excited about that.
We’re also talking with people in the US, we’re talking with people in Korea, we’re talking with people in Japan. But we can’t do everything at once. The day only has 24 hours and you cannot just start a country, it has certain demands, you need to also promote and advertise it there and stuff. But Japan and China are certainly markets which we are very, very interested in. So when the moment is right, then… we will expand.

CH: We are producing in Asia and would love to sell there, too. They also have huge mountains and a ski culture, not to mention the logistical advantage of producing local and selling local.