Black Crows Skis – Camille Jaccoux & Julien Regnier (Ep.64)

Today we’re talking with the co-founder and the head ski designer of one of the hottest brands in all of skiing, Black Crows.

Camille Jaccoux co-founded Black Crows back in 2005, and Julien Regnier joined his old friend Camille at the company in 2009 to take over as the Black Crows’ chief ski shaper.

Before getting involved with Black Crows, Camille and Julien both enjoyed very successful careers in the ski world, and we could have spent hours talking about their personal accomplishments. But in this conversation, the objective was to learn more about the history and the trajectory of this company that is on the radar of a rapidly-growing number of skiers around the world.

As you might imagine, we touched on a whole bunch of interesting stuff, so we are doing something a bit different here and we are splitting my conversation with Camille and Julien into two parts. What you are about to hear is part 1, where we’ll focus on the origins and story of the Black Crows, the design principles & influences of the brand, a few of the key ski models in the history of the company, and we’ll then wrap up with a discussion of their new move into offering Black Crows apparel.

And then this weekend, we’re going to publish part 2 of our conversation over on our GEAR:30 podcast, because that’s when we’re going to dive into the topic of “women’s specific skis” then talk through next season’s 18/19 ski lineup before it gets unveiled next week in Denver at the Snowsports Industries of America tradeshow.

TOPICS & TIMES:

• When did Black Crows start, and talk a bit about what was going on at the time in skiing? (2:58)
• When & how Julien and Camille met (9:17)
• Chamonix’s particular impact on the company and the skis they were making (12:29)
• The 1st Black Crows ski: the Corvus (13:30)
• The 2nd Black Crows ski: the Navis (14:45)
• The origin of the Black Crows name & the Black Crows logo (16:00)
• If someone were to ask, “What do Black Crows skis ski like?”, what would your answer be? (22:03)
• Julien on the new-for-this-season Black Crows Daemon (23:25)
• Which are your personal favorite skis in the lineup? (29:35)
• Outside of the ski world, what areas of design are you interested in? (34:10)
• Julien on the Japanese architect, Tadao Ando (34:55)
• Camille on the designer, Yorgo Tloupas (36:30)
• On the move from making only skis to making other hardgoods, and now, Black Crows apparel (41:10)

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