Flashback: Tony McWilliam, Founder of Faction Skis
In this special ‘Flashback’ episode, Iain speaks with Tony McWilliam – founder of one of the world’s leading snowsports brands – Faction Skis.
We find out what inspired Tony to start Faction, how he smuggled his first batch of 44 skis across the Swiss border to Verbier, meeting freeski legend Candide Thovex when he was just 16 years old and how he grew Faction to become one of the most famous ski brands in the world.
It’s a fascinating story of the perfect meeting of design and entrepreneurship, so sit back and listen, as Tony McWilliam tells us the story of Faction Skis
SHOW NOTES
- Tony designed my first brochure for my first business, Natives.co.uk
- You can listen to our Ski Podcast Special with Pat Sharples here
- Faction skis started in 2003
- BoardX took place in Battersea for several years
- You can listen to our Ski Podcast with Jim Adlington here
- Other key contacts for Tony in the early years were Phil Martin, Gordy Hughes and Matt Reardon
- He worked closely with Peter Bauer, founder of Amplid
- The first range of Faction skis had a waist of 80-110mm
- Initially the skis were made in Annecy before production moved to Austria
- Skis like the Seth Pistol were an inspiration
- Jamie Strachan’s designs for Volkl were another influence
- The first run of Faction skis was just 44 pairs – they now sell 35,000 pairs every year globally
- Sam Smoothy is a NZ freeride skier
- Ski Service in Verbier was the first store to stock Faction Skis
- Tony first met Candide Thovex as a 16-year-old rider in Les Arcs
- Check out Candide in China here (he took 27 pairs of skis with him for that shoot!)
- Tony launched an eco-friendly outerwear brand, GHOSTS, on Kickstarter in 2019
- He also worked with Eric Pollard – ex-Line Skis – on the launch of the new ski and snowboard range Season Eqpt
- Find out about Candide’s outerwear brand
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