Nigel Cabourn has never been shy about looking backwards. His career has been built on it, in fact: digging through archives, pulling out forgotten details, and reworking them until they feel fresh again. But his new collaboration with Swiss mountain sports brand Mammut is less about nostalgia and more about tribute. Together, the two have created a 12-piece unisex capsule for AW25 that revisits one of mountaineering’s great stories – and one of its overlooked heroes.
The collection is inspired by the 1969 Japanese expedition that tackled the Direttissima route on the north face of the Eiger – a brutal wall of ice and rock that has claimed more than its share of lives. Among the climbers was Michiko Imai, who quietly made history as the first woman to scale the peak by that route. At a time when women in Switzerland were still barred from voting, her achievement was quietly radical.
Nigel Cabourn x Mammut: A natural pairing
That spirit of determination underpins the collection. Cabourn has worked with Mammut to combine his vintage-led design language with fabrics both historic and high-tech. There’s Ventile cotton, Scottish wool, and Swiss Army blanket fabric on one hand; Pertex linings and modern down technology on the other. The result is winter outerwear that looks as though it could have been hauled up an alpine face in 1969, but feels built for 2025.
It helps, too, that both Cabourn and Mammut share a love of the mountains. His archive is heavy with expedition gear like down puffers and mountain parkas, while Mammut brings Swiss precision and technical nous. The synergy makes sense, and the campaign – shot this spring on the Eiger itself – ties the story neatly together, with Cabourn, Imai, and a new generation of Japanese Mammut athletes all present.
“This isn’t about nostalgia,” Cabourn says. “It’s about honouring the grit, innovation, and international spirit of mountaineering.”
The Nigel Cabourn x Mammut AW25 collection launches 1 October 2025 at mammut.com and selected stores.
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