Sundance Film Festival’s Cotopaxi Co-Brand is a Colorful Celebration of Utah Brands

Brendan Menapace

The Sundance Film Festival has completely transformed Park City, Utah. What was once a quiet mining town is now a cultural epicenter with boutique stores lining the snowy streets and celebrity homes nestled among the ski resorts.

To match that high-value, outdoorsy aesthetic, the festival collaborated with Utah outdoors brand Cotopaxi for co-branded merchandise.

Cotopaxi is among the likes of The North Face, Herschel, Arc’teryx, and other big names in the modern rugged bag market, making colorful pieces that work as well on a hike as they do on the subway. Much like its fellow outdoors brand Patagonia, the Salt Lake City-based Cotopaxi has an environmentalism mission baked into its business model.

According to KSL, festival-goers will find special 40th Anniversary Sundance merchandise at pop-up stores across park city when it returns in January.

The standout item, already available online, is the Cotopaxi Fanny Pack, mixing and matching all sorts of color schemes with both the brand’s llama logo and the rectangular film festival logo.

It touches on the trends in outdoors-inspired apparel that isn’t just for hiking, but also the return of ’80s and ’90s fashion pieces like the fanny pack—which the kids will now call a “crossbody bag.”

There are a number of other Sundance items on the store, like apparel, notebooks, coffee mugs, and more, but the co-branding here is what stands out, as it still brings in a local flair for an international event. And while Park City has grown exponentially as a result of things like the film festival and the Olympics, it’s cool that the organizers still want to include a local brand, even if it is becoming popular on a larger scale.

Finally, from a design standpoint, it shows that products shouldn’t limit themselves when it comes to color. Loud, multi-colored items have a place in fashion, if done appropriately.

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