J Skis and Icelantic Team Up for Industry First Ski Collab

You don’t see many collaborations like this one. Sure, ski brands partner with artists, musicians, or other brands in different industries. But two ski manufacturers teaming up and creating a collaborative ski is unheard of. As Jason Levinthal of J Skis said, “Can you imagine Nike and Adidas creating a shoe together? That’s what we just did.”

This collaboration between J Skis and Icelantic features an awesome graphic, as you might expect, since both brands are well known for extremely creative top sheet art on all their skis. Each brand’s designers, Mark Fankhauer (Fank) with J Skis and Travis Parr with Icelantic, worked together to come up with this super unique graphic, going back and forth until getting it just right. Both designers have been around since the beginning, with each being one of the two people who started their respective companies: Parr alongside Ben Anderson with Icelantic in 2005 and Fank with Jason Levinthal of J Skis in 2013.

The idea of this collaborative graphic is symbolic; both small, independent, family-owned ski brands see themselves as underdogs, or ‘Undercats,’ compared to the industry’s bigger corporate brands.

SnowBrains chatted with Jason Levinthal, owner of J Skis, about this collaboration. When asked what his favorite part of teaming up with Icelantic for the Undercats was, he said, “How easy it was. It was so freeform and such a natural-flowing collab. It was one phone call, the artists did their thing, and we trusted each other all the way to the end.” The design process began last winter, the skis were made this summer, and now almost a year later, the final results are available in extremely limited quantities.

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With only 100 total pairs made by each brand, these skis are a super limited edition drop. J Skis put the graphic on its Escalator skis, and Icelantic on its Nomads, making both great everyday, all-mountain skis. At 102 underfoot, the Escalator is a versatile twin-tip ski, best for ripping groomers, cruising in boot-deep powder, or, thanks to its light weight, sending it up the skin track. The Nomad 106 has a poppy, playful feel, yet still an incredibly stable freeride backbone that will charge off piste and float well in powder.

With so much enthusiasm around this revolutionary concept across social media, could this be the start of something much bigger, with more collaborations between brands like this in the future? Levinthal thinks, “You’re in the same game; at some point you’re maybe going to work together. Maybe we’ll do it with them [Icelantic] again, or whoever.”

It will be fun to see if other brands within the ski and snowboard industry follow suit in the coming years.