Pagosa Springs native brings Swiss-made quality and craftsmanship apparel to state’s skiing and snowboarding scene

Several Colorado ski resort towns like Aspen, Steamboat, Telluride and Vail are synonymous with skiers rocking flashy, high-end skiwear that has little function behind their designs.

Those Colorado mountain towns have even been said to, anecdotally, mimic European mountain towns with authentic looking buildings, Alps charm and fashion, but realistically dabble more in cosplaying European style.

Current Minturn resident and Capranea CEO Ian Widmer is looking to change that viewpoint.

After a successful launch of the first Capranea store in the Lionshead Village in 2023 and the Minturn location in October 2025, his company is expanding to three new locations: Snowmass, Telluride and the Vail Village during winter 2025-26.

What and who is Capranea

Capranea got its start in the Swiss Alps in 2008 from Marc Haensli, a long-time ski industry apparel maker in Zug, Switzerland.

Haensli came up in the ski apparel business, wanting to follow in his family’s footsteps, and work with textiles to create apparel in the ski world.

“When he started Capranea in 2008, he was able to bring a differentiated product to the market that’s both incredibly technical but then also has different textile properties about it that give it a different look and feel,” Widmer said.

Widmer’s connection to Capranea and Haensli began in 2016 when Haensli walked Widmer through the Capranea collection after the two met earlier through a college roommate connection.

“I just fell in love with what he was doing,” Widmer said. “I thought it was really interesting, as a skier myself, even though I was working for an outdoor luxury outdoor brand at that point in time.”

Heading into the 2020s, Widmer and Haensli teamed up to grow Capranea stateside, with Widmer taking the helm and Haensli taking a seat on the board and offering insight regularly to Widmer.

By 2023, Capranea had a brick-and-mortar location in the Lionshead Village after being offered as a brand in Vail retail staples like Gorsuch and Pepi Sports since 2012.

“Everything Capranea does has to be technical first, design second,” Widmer said. “We are very proud of the fit and feel that we bring to market.”

What makes Capranea unique

• Capranea uses four-way stretch fabric in its skiwear.

“Every part of our jacket stretches,” Widmer said. “As well as when we do utilize fabrics that have a two-way stretch or just stiffer by nature, we develop around it to ensure that you’ll never know that the stretch of that fabric is in a two-way stretch fabric.”

• Capranea designs and engineers a majority of its apparel in Switzerland.

“The core of our brand, our entire ski business of what we manufacture today is 90% now made in Europe,” Widmer said. “For what we do, our focus (on) who we are and the innovation and technology we want to implement through all of our garments, that type of technology is best done close to home.”

• Capranea apparel is centrally located in Eagle County and can serve customers easily locally.

“Right now we’re hyper focused on Colorado because that’s where we are,” Widmer said. We can be (travel to) at any of our stores within two and a half hours if need be. Our North American warehouse is in Gypsum.”

• Capranea appeals to a broad demographic, but also is a step up from an entry level skiwear system like Burton offers.

“Our core demographic is 35-55, that’s where the majority of our activity sits,” Widmer said. “I think what they’re looking for (from us) as (a) more sophisticated, elegant customer, is they want to be able to wear what they have from the Alps to the streets. They want to look good, they want to know that it’s going to function incredibly well, but they also want to recognize that they’re wearing a more elevated brand.”

Capranea’s and Dahu’s Colorado locations:

• Capranea Lionshead Village, 531 E. Lionshead Circle, currently open
• Dahu boots Lionshead Village, 531 E. Lionshead Circle, currently open
• Minturn, 122 Main Street, currently open
• Vail Village, 286 Bridge Street, opening winter 2025-26
• Snowmass Village, Unit DE-7/8, Snowmass Village Mall, opens Thanksgiving week
• Telluride Mountain Village, 586 Mountain Village Blvd Unit 112, opens first week of December

Widmer said of Capranea’s future growth into other markets outside Colorado’s mountain towns: “Denver is a marketplace for sure, for a pop up in some way, shape or form, hopefully in the next 18-to-24 months. The coastal cities are on the growth plan for the next 3-to-5 years.”

Widmer said he’s not in a rush to push the Capranea brand outside the company’s comfort level of expansion, saying in part “we have to prove success in the resort markets where we thrive first and foremost, which I’m happy to say to date, I think we’re going to do just fine.”