Today, SheFly Apparel, a Colorado brand born out of the Moosejaw Accelerator program, which won Innovation awards at Outdoor Retailer 2022 and 2023, has announced a rebranding and name change for its brand and patented zipper technology.
“On April 26, we are rebranding to our new name Gnara. Gnara is derived from the Latin term ‘gnarus,’ meaning to be skilled or have knowledge,” Alyssa Gonzalez, Director of Marketing and Design, told us in an interview.
“Our main goal at the end of the day is to make apparel that solves problems for people. And we don’t want the brand name to be a barrier,” Gonzalez said.
We’ll rewind. For readers not familiar with Gnara (formerly SheFly), the brand invented a special zipper not just at the fly, but that wraps around the entire crotch and bum length of the pant. The result is that peeing outside is way, way easier.
The rebranding came out of direct customer feedback to have a name that is less rooted in one gender and the pronoun “she,” and instead reflects Gnara’s wider range of users. SheFly founders already teased on social media that they took this feedback into consideration to rebrand.
What’s Changing
For the brand, there are two major changes being made. One is the name of the brand itself, changing from SheFly Apparel to Gnara.
“We’ve been around since 2018, but we’ve grown a lot since then and feel like we are growing out of our name. A major goal with this re-brand is to be more inclusive — for people over the years who have said they don’t use she/her pronouns, who are trans, even men who use he/him pronouns who are also using our technology,” Gonzalez added. “A lot of people were coming to us who said they loved our products but said they felt excluded by the name, because it’s gendered.”
When speaking with Gonzalez before the rebranding, we also got some intel on the choice behind the new name.
“We know the word gnarly, gnar … it can have that masculine, super outdoor attitude, and sometimes that’s a barrier for people. But we want to show people that it doesn’t have to be that way. People enjoy the outdoors on a spectrum, and we see our product being able to fit into that spectrum,” she explained. “So this is also us trying to reclaim what gnar is and means in the outdoors.”
The other rebranding move happening is the name change of the brand’s technology, from SheFly technology to GoFly technology. And that is arguably the much bigger change for the brand.
“The design has won two innovation awards, it’s patented, so we want to be able to branch into licensing,” the Gnara team told us. “We have pants, shorts, and we are prototyping leggings. But think of all the other apparel: ski bibs, wetsuits, overalls, and so much more. And there are already brands making great versions of that, so we don’t need to. We could just contribute our technology. We don’t want the name to limit us in that, for say a men’s bib or other gendered apparel.”
This is a pretty great reason to make a name change: more gender neutrality leading to more applications of the brand’s technology. SheFly Apparel started out making a solution for women to more easily pee outside. But, its brand story doesn’t have to end there.
Where Gnara’s Technology Is Going
Lastly, when Gnara’s founders decided on a name change, they were thinking ahead.
“We wanted to consider, how can we grow this company?” Gonzalez told me. “We started with tackling the zipper problem, but we see so many other limitations in apparel that we want to start problem-solving for.”
They want people to know that the product isn’t just the pee zipper. Or, as Gonzalez put it, “We don’t want to be known as the ‘pee pant girls’ forever. We want to expand into the industry.”
And in terms of the Latin name Gnara, yes, for those who caught on, they are using the feminine root of the word. The reason? “We are really proud of being female-founded and women-owned, and we do still want to celebrate the accomplishments SheFly has brought for women,” Gonzalez said. “It’s still part of what we do. We’re not trying to center [Gnara] on women’s experiences, but we still want to acknowledge that in our brand.”
Last but not least, “Nothing about the product is changing; it’s just a new logo,” Gonzalez emphasized in our interview. On the other hand, it’s more than that, too.
As Gonzalez said, this isn’t just a zipper. And it isn’t just a name change — it’s a move by the brand to elevate itself as a patented innovator in the industry. And hopefully, get its pants or technology on a whole lot more people.
Along with the rebranding, Gnara will launch a massive new collection, including four models of (long-awaited) shorts and three more pants. The spring collection launches today. All further Gnara products will reflect the new branding.
