Back in Business: Ibex Merino Reboots Operations

After shuttering operations in 2018, Ibex — the famed merino brand — will relaunch this month.

With only one full-time employee, Ibex Outdoor Clothing prepares to go live later this month, SNEWS reported today. Calling it “Ibex 2.0,” the brand’s new general manager, Bonie Shupe, announced some early details about the reboot.

Operating out of Boulder, Colorado, Shupe will direct a team of contractors and former Ibex employees to launch a first run of products later this month. Shupe, who previously worked in apparel design with Cabela’s and Spyder, told SNEWS the brand will start with “classic items that people really love and [make] them better.”

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Not much information has surfaced, but Shupe confirmed the new-look Ibex will be a smaller, more focused version of the original brand. Whereas “Ibex 1.0” had more than 450 SKUs, Shupe will oversee fewer than 30. She also said the old Shak Jacket was one among the “highlighted items” for the relaunch.

Ibex Relaunches Fall 2019

In December 2017, a month after laying off a third of its workforce, Vermont-based Ibex announced it was going out of business, after 20 years of operation. In March 2018, New York-based investor group Flour Fund acquired Ibex’s intellectual property rights and remaining assets.

Before it closed, Ibex reportedly had around $20 million in annual revenue. The brand made waves in the outdoor industry by shucking the synthetic fiber trend in activewear and helped usher in merino as a staple in the outdoors.