Mammut Mountainwear: Addressing Anti-Gorpcore With Flair

Mountainwear isn’t a fashion accessory. 

That’s a bold statement from Mammut, the 162‑year‑old Swiss mountaineering brand that wants to bring outdoor wear back to its roots: gear made for the mountains, not for the catwalk.

‘Mountainwear Rescue’ is the second campaign in Mammut’s anti‑gorpcore stance, built on the insight that a growing number of people are misusing their outdoor apparel. After the original campaign, ‘Not a Streetwear Brand’, which kicked off the movement by targeting competitors selling clothes for the street rather than the summit, the insight evolved. Outdoor community members had begun calling out others for not giving their gear the life it deserved.

“What we’re doing is reinforcing our core: leaning into our hardcore mountaineering equity and reinforcing our position as an OG mountaineering brand,” explains Nic Brandenberger, CMO at Mammut. “That strengthens the connection with the core community.”

Working alongside its creative agency, DEPT, the brand has taken a comedic route to address the issue, with a hero film revolving around the great gear rescue.

Outside the box creative

The campaign’s aesthetic uses lo‑fi imagery to create an authentic, third‑person feel, drawing on CCTV footage, dash cams, and Ring doorbells.

Mirroring a CCTV surveillance operation, the campaign creates ‘gotcha’ moments in which Mammut officers catch people wearing its gear while doing everyday tasks, handing out exaggerated notices to the “offenders”.

“We loved the idea of doing something that felt more underdog, which makes a lot of sense for Mammut anyway, and shooting it in a slightly different way,” begins Bel Moretti, creative director at DEPT. “We had clear parameters, but the approach ended up feeling true to the brand. Doing something overly shiny and polished would have felt like a contradiction. Instead, we liked the idea of faking real life and making a joke of it at the same time.”

Gorpcore — the fashion trend that sees outdoor gear designed for recreation being used as streetwear — is, according to Moretti, “the elephant in the room in the industry”, and for the pair, addressing the issue by poking fun at it — something that hadn’t been done before — was key to making it work.

“Timing is everything if you want to make a good joke; it’s simply funny that we spend all this money on incredible gear and then never give it the life it’s meant to have. Why not tell that joke at the right moment and make people laugh?”

For Brandenberger, Mammut’s heritage as a challenger brand has allowed it to make work that goes against the category’s norm. 

“We’re a challenger brand and that gives us a lot of freedom to play and do things slightly differently,” he outlines. “If you look at most of the content coming out of the category, it’s very glossy and beautiful - blue hour, 4am on a mountain, pristine ice fields. It’s inspiring and does a great job of encouraging people to go above the tree line, but none of it is really ownable. No brand owns the mountain; it isn’t an ownable asset in any way.

“So instead of doing the same thing or competing in the same visual language, as a challenger brand we have a lot of licence to experiment with humour and take a more unconventional creative approach. That’s what we’re leaning into here.”

The unpredictability of gorpcore

Of course, while its anti-gorpcore stance plays a key role in the campaign, what if the trend of wearing high‑tech, windproof jackets as fashion accessories disappeared tomorrow?

For Brandenberger, constant feedback from communities that use Mammut products reinforces his belief that, regardless of trends, the brand will always look for ways to serve its customers best.

“We hear a lot from the community, including the gorpcore community, and there’s a lot of overlap between people who are actual mountaineers and those into gorpcore,” says Brandenberger. “We hear consistent feedback about how tired people are of certain brands. At the same time, we started seeing more people actually taking these products outdoors and saying things like, ‘I’m finally giving my trail running shoes the life they deserve’.

“That made it clear this wasn’t just our idea or an inside industry joke. It was something genuinely happening in the community. People were conscious of it and talking about it themselves, so we knew we were onto something.”

Unlike most brands in the category that have leaned into the gorpcore trend, Mammut is standing its ground - something that’s making the brand’s challenger mentality stand out. 

“It didn’t feel like we were chasing a trend,” explains Moretti. “It felt less like trend-following and more like observing something genuinely strange that people do. As a brand, poking fun at that behaviour felt natural. Humans do bizarre things all the time, and often the best creative work comes from not taking things 100 per cent seriously because it’s rooted in something true, it doesn’t feel wrong - even looking back at it in hindsight."

Its wacky take on the issue has proved successful; Brandenberger reveals that this campaign won’t be the last in its anti-gorpcore catalogue: “We’re already working on the next piece. It’s going to be just as punchy and aggressive. There are quite a few surprises on the way.” 

Moretti agrees: “The momentum from the last project has rolled straight into the next one - the brief came in just a few days later.”

Creative collaboration 

Mammut and DEPT have worked together since 2023 - a partnership that has allowed long-term creative and strategic thinking to bring this multi‑layered campaign to life.

Working with a client like Mammut that isn’t afraid to challenge the status quo of its category while retaining a fine balance of its core values is a “dream”, according to Moretti. 

“Everyone wants to work on this account. There are lots of reasons we love the work we do, but this one in particular is special. It’s one of those moments where the brand and the creative team can really flex their muscles,” she continues. 

“You can do it safely because you know the insight is going to land and that the work is true to the brand. You don’t have to second‑guess that foundation, which means you can be braver without the usual fear that comes with putting something bold out into the world. It’s genuinely brilliant.”

And for Mammut, having a creative partner who is willing to dive into its challenger brand mindset is exactly what it wants in a collaboration. 

“It’s a very open relationship, and I really value that,” explains Brandenberger. “There was a lot of back and forth on the idea and how we executed it - that conversation was important because, for us, this represented a new mindset - stepping into the role of a challenger brand and communicating in a more aggressive, punchy way.

“It took time for us to absorb and grow into the idea, and Bel and the team were incredibly helpful in guiding those discussions. This work is shaping the way forward for us. There’s a new tone of defiance coming through, and that’s something we’re adopting as we move ahead. It’s a great partnership to have.”