From sleeping rough to global success: How Hamish Acland built Mons Royale

Saturday, 28 September 2024

Mons Royale co-founder Hamish Acland was a professional skier before launching the merino clothing brand.

Hamish Acland used to sleep rough in Austria while “hanging out skiing”.

These days, Austria is one of three ski destinations in the world where Acland has a headquarters for his business, Mons Royale.

A Christchurch professional skier, Acland travelled with the sport in his younger years, but was always asking himself what he’d do next.

Acland saw a gap in the market for clothing that went from the slopes to the street. He met his wife, Hannah, at the start of the Mons Royale journey.

“I was the only pro skier travelling with a notebook scribbling down ideas. I just had that entrepreneurial mindset.”

He said growing up on a Mt Somers farm was unknowingly great inspiration. He learned a lot “without realising it”.

Throughout competitions on the slopes, securing sponsorships and working in ski shops, he noticed there was a gap in the active clothing market. There was synthetic clothing made by the big brands and good merino gear, but nothing went from the slopes to the streets with ease, he said.

“Living out of a ski bag for half a year, I valued things that had versatility, something I could wear on the mountain and off.

“The basic premise was to take a merino base layer, and give it the style and energy you could wear [anywhere].”

Unaware of the lessons ahead and how green he was to business, Acland launched into creating a brand, but a few signs along the way told him he was on the right track.

He met his wife and Mons Royale co-founder Hannah when he was beginning the journey.

Professional skiing wasn’t a big money-earner for Acland, seeing him sleep in a park in Innsbruck, Austria, while skiing there.

With a visual designer background, she brought his “vision to life”, he said.

“You need some of those signs that help give you some confidence.”

Another sign he was on course was revealed while naming the brand.

Trademarking a name was “pretty expensive”, but a two-word name was easier to trademark and gave more variables.

He wanted something that sounded global, landing on Mons Royale. Mons is Latin for mountain, so the name translate to “king of the mountain”.

“In capitals, Mons upside down [and back to front] is ‘snow’.

Merino is like “nature’s air conditioner” and a better choice environmentally, Acland says.

“We didn’t know that when we started but it was another one of those signs that gives you a bit of a kick. You realise you should continue to pursue it, even when lots of things are going wrong.”

There had been peaks and troughs throughout building the brand, especially while dealing with distributors on the other side of the world, but Acland said they were all barriers to overcome. If you resolve them well, “you get some pretty cool outcomes”.

Fifteen years since the clothing brand hit the shelves, it’s now stocked in 1000 stores globally with headquarters in Wānaka, Innsbruck in Austria, and Squamish near Whistler in Canada.

“In all three places, I used to hang out skiing. I actually slept in the park in Innsbruck to avoid paying the hotel fee.

“I was a professional skier, but I still slept in a park. Not all sports [make you] enough to buy a house.”

Mons Royale makes a large range of clothing including underwear, pants, jackets and tops, homing in on merino, a natural fabric supplied by a Christchurch company.

Using a fibre produced on farms across the country was beneficial for performance, Acland said, because it was like “nature’s air conditioner”. “It warms when it’s cold and cools when it’s hot.” And unlike synthetic materials, wool could be worn for days and not smell.

“Seventy per cent of all clothing is oil derived. Natural fibres are the better alternative.”