The North Face Red Box Collection Debuts Globally In Queens, New York

Streetwear Store Extra Butter in Long Island City

Photo Courtesy of ExtraButterNY

Say The North Face, snow-peaked summits come to mind. Say Queens, NY, and one thing that doesn’t come to mind is great fashion and design sense. Though one indie retailer, Extra Butter in the boroughs’ buzzy Long Island City, aims to change that. The family-owned business has a long-standing retail distribution partnership with the brand synonymous with puffer coats and teamed up with the technical outerwear-centric brand for its global debut of a new line introduction, The North Face Red Box, whose name refers to the brand’s square label. The entire collection, which features a streetwear versus gear angle, was on display, along with the brand’s new campaign film complete with the store’s theater-style seating, at an event hosted at the retailer.

The collection features relaxed and oversized styles made from premium materials and classic construction, and harkens back to The North Face’s offerings of the 1970s and 1990s. Aimed to be a daily uniform for those who ‘Never Stop Exploring’, the offering mixes both classic The North Face materials with modern, innovative fabrics with an intriguing color palette with details that include branded antique silver snaps, vislon zippers, and the distinctive 30mm Red Box woven label.

Highlights of the collection are a snap front down jacket devoid of external quilting, a waterproof Coaches jacket, a packable wind jacket, and coordinating with sealed seams and sleek 90s-era windbreaker inspired fabric called WINDWALL, a premium fit hoodie and sweatpants made with Climate Conscious cotton, and a heavy weight tee in the same climate friendly cotton agricultural practices. Prices in the collection will range from $50-$400.

According to Bernie Gross, Creative Director for Extra Butter, the indie store in Queens was chosen to showcase the debut of The North Face Red Box, thanks to long-standing partnerships and collaborations as well as the nuance of its community.

“The North Face has launched different Box collections, with each purveying different styles and design directions. Our customer is familiar with these iterations and that’s why they want to collect from each. Extra Butter and The North Face have been wholesale partners for a long time, and we have collaborated on specific merchandise together. They understand that our community is a fan of these special collections and routinely collects them,” said Gross as the event was getting to kick off amid an unexpected New York summer thunderstorm.

Previous box collections included Purple Box focused on new silhouettes, Black Box that was focused on fabrication, and Brown Box that was vintage inspired. “The colors don’t dictate actual color of product, just that the color labels help identify which design school it stemmed from,” Gross added.

Gross has worked with the family-run brand, which was founded as a sneaker store in the 1980s, for over 20 years. The father of Extra Butter co-founders Nick and Ankur Amin—who is CEO of its parent company TGS Holdings that also owns Nashville-based retailer Rooted, as well as other shops including Renarts, Crusoe & Sons, and Reed Space—opened a sneaker emporium as a recent immigrant to the US.

Extra Butter was founded in 2007 with an idea to combine passions for film, fashion, and culture. To wit, previous The North Face X Extra Butter collaborations included an exclusive print for its “Night Crawlers” collection, which draws inspiration from New York City nights as depicted in classic neo-noir films, and the “Technical Difficulties” print reminiscent of the lo-fi TV and VHS aesthetic nostalgia. Currently, the store has three locations. Besides Long Island City, Extra Butter is located on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and in a newly opened store in Mumbai. TGS Holdings recently named Manne Gonzalez as Extra Butter’s new CEO.