Swiss sportswear company finds American home in the Pearl district

Joelle Jones
·2 min read

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — There are few industries more synonymous with Stumptown than sportswear.

But the year is off to a rocky start for major Oregon employers like Nike and Columbia Sportswear, as Nike announced plans to lay off 2% of its workforce this month and Columbia Sportswear is slated to slash 3 to 5% of their employees by the end of March.

Still, as industry goliaths rush to resize, other up and coming brands are putting roots in Portland and seeing major growth. For example, the Swiss-based company On who opened their first U.S. pop-up in Portland.

“If you’re a customer and you want to try on the ‘Stratus’ you can actually just pull out a section of this wall and we have try-on shoes available for anyone to just put on our feet,” displayed Britt Olsen, On’s General Manager for the Americas.

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When asked about what sets On apart from other sportwear brands, Olsen said it comes down to their commitment to innovation.

“Our founder cut up a garden hose and glued it to the bottom of the shoe and that was our first prototype,” she said. “Fortunately, we’ve come a long way since then, but the DNA of that technology still remains, which consumers are really able to see intuitively in a shoe which we now know as ‘CloudTec Phase.'”

Olsen said On has a huge commitment to Portland.

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“We opened over 60,000 square feet of office space, we’re growing our teams pretty impressively across the board to support all functions, not just in Americas but globally,” she added. “So, this store is just one way to show the Portland community that we really appreciate their support and taking a bet on a ‘little brand that was’ 10 years ago.”

Nearly 10 years later, the company has built their American headquarters in the Pearl district.

This has grown from three to 260 local employees and they are now set to open their new flagship store on Northwest 23rd and Hoyt on Saturday at 11 a.m.

Also, to get everyone in the running spirit On is hosting a community run to Forest Park and back that same day starting at 9 a.m.

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