REWRITIING THE RULES OF PERFORMANCE
TO DESIGN WITH INTEGRITY
When you ask Neil Baker, Senior Director of Global Brand at Smartwool & icebreaker. to describe what it means to lead at both brands, the word integrity comes to mind again and again—not as a buzzword, but as a compass. A veteran of performance brands like Nike, Oakley, and Hoka, Baker has spent his career pushing for sustainability in spaces where it’s often deprioritized. “You start with good intentions,” he says, “and by the time margin pressures and timelines hit, sustainability becomes a slide in the kickoff deck that nobody revisits.” But at Icebreaker, purpose is not an afterthought. It’s the foundation.
Founded in 1995 in New Zealand, Icebreaker was early to the idea that nature knows best. Today, under Baker’s creative leadership, that ethos has evolved into a bold mandate: design apparel that’s 100% natural, plastic-free, regenerative, and transparent—not someday, but now. And yet, as Baker shares with Purpose and Perspective founder Elizabeth Cabral, building that future isn’t always sleek or linear. It’s layered. Complex. Often slow. But always deeply human.
“If you want to lead a movement toward a more natural way of living, you have to be willing to give more than you take. That’s what Icebreaker is here to do.”
A SYSTEMS-BASED BRAND WITH A FARM-TO-FIBER VISION
Most brands start with a sketch. Icebreaker often starts with a farm.“One of the things that makes us unique,” Baker explains, “is that we can trace every decision down to the soil. If the right fiber doesn’t exist, we work with our mills. If the mills can’t solve it, we go back to the growers and ask them to co-develop it with us.”
This isn’t marketing language—it’s operational reality. Icebreaker works hand-in-hand with New Zealand Merino and co-founded the ZQRX regenerative program, collaborating with other mission-driven brands like Allbirds and Smartwool to support fifteen key indicators for regenerative health, from biodiversity and water retention to animal welfare and human labor. They even crowdsource community votes on which regenerative practices to fund—from dog training for gentler animal handling to restoring native fish populations to degraded waterways.“It’s bigger than us. It has to be. That’s the point.”
THE GROWERS CLUB: A MODEL FOR COLLECTIVE RESILIENCE
As part of Icebreaker’s Growers Club, the brand has committed to 10-year contracts with sheep farmers, giving them the stability to invest in their land, tools, and families. “The best wool is just a byproduct of good soil,” Neil says, quoting one of their farmers.
This kind of long-term thinking is rare in fashion—but Baker believes it’s essential. “If a grower knows they have a decade-long contract, they can take a loan to improve their land. They can invest in machinery. They can breathe. And that changes everything.”Even when the wool market fluctuates and Icebreaker is paying above market price, the brand holds the line.
“That’s what it means to be purpose-led. You commit.
DESIGNING FOR A FUTURE BEYOND PLASTIC
As of Spring 2025, Icebreaker’s line is 97.56% plastic-free, a milestone that reflects thousands of quiet, uncompromising design decisions. Threads, trims, coatings—each detail is considered. And yet, Baker is quick to say that plastic-free isn’t the end. It’s a beginning. “Our next goal is to go beyond neutral and become nature-positive—a brand that leaves ecosystems healthier than we found them. That’s going to require new metrics, more transparency, and collaboration across the entire system.”
WHEN YOUR CLOTHES CAN LIVE ON THE MOUNTAIN AND IN THE CITY
Icebreaker doesn’t design lifestyle. It designs for life. That distinction is deliberate.“We make performance pieces that can live off the trail and in the office. A base layer that’s technical, yes—but also beautiful. Design matters. People want things that function and feel aspirational.”Case in point: a new base layer that was designed strictly for mountain performance is now worn tucked into trousers by design team members in Milan. “We didn’t plan for that,” Baker laughs, “but those are the joyful accidents when you design well.”
TELLING A BIGGER STORY
For a brand born in the wild, one of Icebreaker’s biggest challenges is translating its purpose to people who don’t live close to nature. “It’s no coincidence that the brands doing the best work in this space are outdoor brands,” Baker says. “If there’s no outdoors, there’s no brand.”But that also means responsibility—to make sustainability not just a virtue, but a visual. To make the impact personal.Their latest initiative? A three-part documentary series filmed with Protect Our Winters and leading glaciologists, tracing the downstream effects of glacial melt on real communities—from vineyards to hydroelectric stations.“If someone sees that a glacier powers their lights or irrigates their food, that’s a connection. That’s the story we need to tell.”
THE FUTURE: PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION
Baker is the first to admit Icebreaker didn’t meet its original “plastic-free by 2023” goal. But for him, transparency is strength. “There’s no silver bullet. There’s just progress. And if we can keep leading with that, then we’re doing our job.”In a moment where fashion is rethinking its role, Icebreaker is showing us a new blueprint—one that doesn’t sacrifice performance for purpose, one that doesn’t rush to scale without systems, and one that isn’t afraid to say: we’re not done yet.Because for Neil Baker and the Icebreaker team, the work isn’t just about product. It’s about principles. And in a world addicted to shortcuts, that’s what makes this brand different.It’s not perfect. But it’s real. And that might just be the most radical thing of all.