Shaun White has ruled the snowboarding world for nearly two decades, and now he’s brought that winning mentality to his latest project, Whitespace.
Since retiring from competition after the 2022 Beijing Olympics, White has focused on building her winter sportswear brand, which launched last year and is sold on Backcountry.com and her own site. After initially debuting with snowboarding offerings, the brand is expanding into performance-based sports leisure, as well as clothing and equipment for skiing, biking, walking and fitness training.
Speaking with FN last month, White said that as he enters the next phase of his life, he has high aspirations for the business. “I’m a competitor, it’s what I do, and it’s every little thing I can do to make better products,” he said. “That is the kind of attitude I adopted in my sports career. It’s this never-ending search for progression.”
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Here, the sports star reflects on fashion, entrepreneurship, and a pivotal encounter with Virgil Abloh.
Why did you want to start your own brand?
“When you join a sponsor, it’s always like, don’t get me wrong, I loved working with them, but you’re joining their mold. My job is to fit their mold better, but then I try to be myself, I try to be unique and collaborative, but they have their own logo, they have their own color schemes. Where[as] When you start your own brand, you are actually building the mold from scratch and steering the ship. When my previous partnership with this company ended, I did not rush to sign. I was like, ‘Let me take a moment, see what’s in it for me.
Shaun White in Whitespace’s 2022 campaign.
CREDIT: Courtesy of Whitespace
How did you choose what the brand would be?
“I started making these special boards, and kept refining, tuning and dialing in what is now the Whitespace Freestyle Shaun White Pro model. All my competitors had these solid black bases [because black holds the wax best which makes it fast], but I thought it was just nowhere. So I said, ‘What if we just put a big white stripe across the board?’ During that season it was amazing, because my photographers and my coach would see me immediately, because I had the big parting at the base. Then when the name Whitespace came up, it just got mixed up with the images. Obviously the name is a play on my last name, but the meaning of Whitespace is great. It’s a blank canvas, a void waiting to be filled with something new. Within the sport of snowboarding, there is this element of creativity. It’s one of the only sports where I could be the best in the world because I invented a new trick. There aren’t many sports like that.”
Why did now seem like the right time to pitch?
“There hasn’t been a new brand that has really entered the market in the world of winter sports. There have been the Monclers and those high-end fashion brands, but [the] most of the companies are the big names that have been around for over 40 years, and there really haven’t been any new people in the mix. All ours [is] try to deliver quality products but be unique within the space.”
Shaun White in Whitespace’s 2022 campaign.
CREDIT: Courtesy of Whitespace
Is there a project that you hope to achieve with the brand?
“I crossed one off right out the door. We did a collaboration with Louis Vuitton right at the Olympics. I was snowboarding and I saw this guy on the mountain. He wore Louis Vuitton from head to toe. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Virgil. [Abloh].’ We connected, we did a lap or two, we exchanged numbers. And then I gave him a ring because he was starting this brand. He was so supportive and amazing. I sent him these renderings of a Louis Vuitton snowboard trunk that I designed. He was so excited that he sent me all these pictures of the things he wanted to do in the world of winter sports. He is a big fan of snowboarding. We’re both music fans, so we made a guitar case. And then my typical travel luggage, which was a rolling briefcase and a duffel bag. He died before the finished product came out. But I had to have my ‘Virgil was here’ moment, walking into the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in China with my new gear, my luggage.”
Shaun White in Whitespace’s 2022 campaign.
CREDIT: Courtesy of Whitespace
She’s made some bold fashion statements over the years, but recently there’s been a more marked change in her style. Is there a past appearance that you regret? And when did you notice a change in the way you dress?
“Since I was a kid, I rode for companies, and you are contractually bound to wear the clothes. It wasn’t until I started designing for Target – I had a kids’ line there for a long time, [and] I wasn’t forced to wear the clothes, I was just a designer, so I asked myself, ‘What’s my style?’ Then I started walking around in fucking skinny pants and leather vests and all that stuff. I love rock music, so I turned to my heroes in the music world, which were Guns and Roses and Led Zeppelin. My hair was super long, I started playing the guitar. As I got older, I moved to New York for a minute and everyone in New York wore black. I had to go to galas, I had to go to red carpet events. I grew up a bit and started wearing suits and tuxedos. And then I ended up cutting my hair, and that changed a lot because now I could wear hats. But I think it was always just evolution. Now I’m still in that place of: I either wear completely dark colors, or I’m very loud, in a pop colors kind of thing.”
I eat to be Entrepreneur in charge of your own brand compared to being an athlete?
“It is very similar in many ways. You are working on things in the background and you are training or building the plan. Then at some point you have to go out and run. Some of it you have completely planned out and other things just happen along the way. … Just keep it up. And you should also be open to hearing feedback. You can’t just say, ‘I know better.’ It’s a collaborative thing, where my sporting world was very individual, where it was all about me, my training, my tricks and where I was going. [In that way] this is very different.”
You have been one of the faces of snowboarding for a long time. How involved are you these days?
“I hope I’m still in the book. The good thing about this sport is that it’s not like football or baseball: I don’t need to get the whole team together to have fun. For me, snowboarding has always been something where I can go work on a new trick, and I still do if I want to, I just don’t have to show it on TV and get scored for it. But not much has changed in my world, except for the grueling travel and competitive schedule.”
What does the future of snowboarding look like? And are there athletes that excite you?
“I don’t know about the future of the sport, [but] it’s going to be amazing. Obviously, there’s that new generation, that younger generation that’s taking all the tricks we’ve done and outdoing them. The twists keep getting bigger and bigger, and then we added somersaults to them, and then we added double somersaults, and now we’re adding triple and quadruple somersaults. I’ve been a huge fan of Toby Miller. He is an American snowboarder. He’s really good, he just needs a couple of things to click to be great. We all support him and hope he really blossoms as a competitor. Chloe Kim is amazing. However, she’s not really on the rise; she has already won two gold medals. But I know enough about her to know that she’s a competitor at heart, and she’s still so young that she could go to the Olympics multiple times.”
Source: news.google.com