How Canada Goose went from making Antarctic outerwear to selling luxury status symbols, and where it goes from here
Madeline Berg
7 min read
Canada Goose's logo has become a symbol of both luxury and function.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Canada Goose
Canada Goose has gone from a utilitarian white-label business to a luxury status symbol.
The company, famous for its parkas, is a celebrity favorite.
Now, it's looking to grow through diversification and selling directly to shoppers.
Look closely, and you'll spot Canada Goose's famous logo — a red, blue, and white map of the North Pole — in places that may seem incongruous. Movie stars sport the brand out and about in New York City, while hotel valets choose the heavyweight puffy jackets to weather Boston's frigid winters.
This mix of A-list appeal and functionality has helped Canada Goose grow sales and achieve what can be particularly challenging in the retail industry: becoming a luxury brand.
The company, which started as a private-label manufacturer in Canada making utilitarian wool vests and snowmobile suits, has become synonymous with expensive outerwear. Its parkas are sold at upscale department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Harrods for over $1,500. The family-run company is worth about $1 billion; in the 2024 fiscal year, which ended in March, revenue reached $930 million.
Now, amid a general decline in luxury labels, the company is facing a new challenge. Its stock is down double digits in the past year, and analysts have criticized the company for its lack of "brand heat" and overreliance on China.
Through a focus on direct-to-consumer channels and product expansion, Canada Goose is looking to grow — both in terms of revenue and scope — while maintaining a sheen of prestige. It remains to be seen if it can stay warm through this cooldown.
A goose takes flight
Like many luxury brands — Hermès and Burberry, for example — Canada Goose wasn't started as a luxury endeavor. It was all about function. Founded as Metro Sportswear in 1957, it was a private-label manufacturer, making cold-weather gear for other labels like L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer to sell as their own.
That began to change in the 1970s when David Reiss, the son-in-law of the company's founder and father of its current CEO, Dani Reiss, invented a machine that allowed the manufacturer to fill its jackets easily with down (also known as goose feathers, hence the name).
"He was very good at finding a functional need and fulfilling it with a functional product," Dani Reiss told Business Insider of his father. "We became down experts."
A vintage Snow Goose jacket before the label rebranded to Canada Goose.Alexander Calbi, Paige Clarke, Sarah Elkasaby/Business Insider
Powered by feathers, the company outfitted the first Canadian to summit Mt. Everest and was the chosen outerwear of scientists in Antarctica. Its own label — at the time called "Snow Goose" — was still far from a global household name.
When Dani Reiss, who had spent his whole life at the company doing everything from sweeping floors to answering phones, became CEO in 2001, he set out to change that. He rebranded to "Canada Goose" and did everything he could to make that brand visible.
The company gifted jackets to hockey players, hotel valets, and nightclub bouncers. Soon, the parkas made their way to Hollywood, first worn by film crews and then by cast members onscreen in early aughts movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" and "National Treasure." Before long, celebrities were wearing them of their own volition.
The brand became a celebrity favorite in the 2010s.Bobby Bank/GC Images; Bobby Bank/WireImage; Rich Fury/Getty Images
Think of it as pre-social-media influencer marketing. Coupled with an increase in pricing that firmly marked the brand as luxury, it worked. When Dani Reiss officially joined the company in 1997, annual revenue was about $2.2 million. In 2008, it hit $16.4 million.
The Cut declared 2015 "the winter of Canada Goose," and Vogue featured A-lister after A-lister wearing its signature jackets. The company now had fashion bona fides.
"First, you need to legitimize yourself by proving that you can work effectively and that you can bring a product that is actually well-performing," Emanuela Prandelli, a professor of fashion and luxury management at Bocconi University, told BI. "Then you can cross-cut it with the fashion luxury component."
Growing up — and growing beyond down
The company went public in 2017, and its stock climbed steeply for the next few years. But that momentum has waned. In the past 12 months, Canada Goose shares have fallen about 11%; in the past five years, they're down 70%.
Analysts have blamed several factors. The luxury sector fell overall in 2024, with industry bellwethers like LVMH and Kering also tumbling. In October, Wells Fargo downgraded Canada Goose's stock to "underweight," citing a lackluster performance on social media and overreliance on China — where it has the most retail stores and which produces the most revenue — which is facing economic instability.
In February 2023, Canada Goose released a strategic plan that included three focus areas — accelerating growth among women and Gen Zers, building its direct-to-consumer network, and creating new products while expanding existing categories. The goal is for revenue to hit $2.1 billion by 2028.
"We've been a wholesale brand for so long, and we decided that we wanted to have direct relationships with our consumers. We wanted to sell online, we wanted to have stores," Reiss told BI.
Canada Goose is expanding its direct-to-consumer channels, including by opening more retail stores.Rob Kim/Getty Images
DTC can be a powerful tool for controlling a brand's image and pricing and for attracting customers to other products. A department store may only carry Canada Goose's most popular parkas; a Canada Goose store or its website could have the full line. Plus, it allows the brand to understand its customers better, collect data, and improve client relationships, Prandelli said.
The move hasn't entirely worked. While DTC revenue was up for the fiscal year 2024, it fell last quarter year over year.
The brand has attempted to diversify beyond the winter parka — or pushing customers to buy multiple parkas, which most people don't really need — since 2015, when it introduced its first spring collection. In response to questions about its stock performance, a spokesperson pointed to the company's expansion into other categories, including, most recently, eyewear (they didn't comment on the share price).
"Some iconic pieces never go out of the market and should be part of every collection," Prandelli said, referring to Canada Goose's jackets. "But you need to have some continual injection of new items."
"It's much cheaper to make money from existing clients than keep attracting new consumers," she added.
The company's diversification attempts have been mixed. Sales of non-heavyweight-down units — including apparel, wind wear, and footwear — were up 20% in the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year and made up 46% of sales in fiscal 2024. (The move away from down is also a win for PETA, which has protested Canada Goose's use of fur and down. The company stopped using fur in 2022.)
That said, Canada Goose still leans heavily on its signature item; for the 2024 fiscal year, nearly 80% of its annual EBITDA came in the third quarter, which ends in December, when customers are shelling out on thick winter jackets.
For other luxury outerwear brands, like Moncler, collaborations have been one way to attract repeat customers. Canada Goose is attempting something similar by appointing Haider Ackermann, the French fashion designer who also heads design at Tom Ford, as creative director.
His first collection, released in November, achieved "record-setting marketing success, and his new capsule collection, Snow Goose by Canada Goose, has been exceptionally well-received by consumers," the Canada Goose spokesperson said, though did not provide sales figures.
Achieving luxury is one thing. Maintaining growth in the sector, though, may turn out to be a wild goose chase.
