What moved (Aug '25 – Jul '26)
| Metric | Aug 2025 → Jul 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | 87% → 91% | +4pp |
| Consideration | 68% → 75% | +7pp |
| Investigation | 64% → 68% | +4pp |
| Preference | 31% → 36% | +5pp |
What's behind the growth
The North Face's brand push has been focusing on three key areas: collaborations, retail and brand purpose.
Its collaborations leaned into design and cause-driven partnerships: after a Spring 2025 runway debut with womenswear designer Cecilie Bahnsen at Paris Fashion Week, it released a second capsule with her in October 2025, then teamed up with agricultural nonprofit Sky High Farm on a "Goodness Grows" capsule in April 2026, backed by ongoing financial contributions to the farm's food-equity work.
On retail, it opened its largest store globally: a 21,000 sq ft flagship on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, in November 2025.
And its brand purpose investments ran in parallel: it launched a $1 million "Power of Nature" platform with the National Park Foundation in September 2025 to get more than 300,000 US youth into national park programming, [signed an eight-year deal in May 2026 to become official performance apparel partner of U.S.
Ski & Snowboard](https://www.vfc.com/news/featured-story/136604/the-north-face-named-official-performance-apparel-partner-of-u-s-ski-snowboard) through to the 2034 Winter Olympics cycle, and rolled out its "Never Just a Hike" campaign from March 2026, framing hiking around personal meaning rather than gear or endurance, backed by hiking-themed activations across multiple cities.
