Next Season's Gear from The North Face at Winter Outdoor Retailer Show

The North Face designs manufactures all sorts of outdoor gear for any of your mountain adventures and so it's no surprise that their booth at the Outdoor Retailer show was massive and chock full of new products. The big news for next season is their "Fuseform" construction method.

As you can see in the pictures below the jacket has textured fabric in certain locations like the shoulders and arms and smooth fabric in others. This is actually the same fabric, there are no seams. This is The North Face's "Fuseform" innovation in action. It provides the ability to have unique fabrics in specific locations (ex. that are higer wear or need extra grip for pack shoulder straps) without the need for seems since it is the same piece of fabric. This makes products lighter, stronger, less bulky and more durable.

Here's a close up shot so you can see what I mean.

Some additional detials about Fuseform.

The North Face will also be expanding their line up of offerings that use their innovative "Thermoball" Insulation that was introduced this season and which is a down-like insulation, however being synthetic it will keep you warm when wet.

Here's an example of one of their new products to be released this year:

The North Face also has a wide range of running, hiking and cross trainer shoes in their "Ultra Protection Series" of shoes coming to market this spring.

The North Face's tag line is "Never Stop Exploring" but perhaps it should be "Never Stop Innovating"?