Salvation Brands keeps a low profile.
The Costa Mesa, Calif.-based company is the brainchild of Tyson White, a 30-year industry veteran whose background includes Quiksilver, Diesel, Rip Curl and Burton Snowboards.
Five years ago he created Salvation Brands to serve as an incubator of companies in the outdoor, action sports and fashion arenas. The company owns or operates a portfolio of labels including Ruby Mint, a beach accessories brand; The Brown Buffalo, a premium bag label; Bootcap, a toe cover for ski boots, and SPC/LST, pronounced specialist, a technical men’s apparel brand.
On Thursday it will introduce Esci, a new mountain lifestyle brand designed to fill what the company sees as a gap in the market for fashionable apres-ski wear. Italian for “you go out,” Esci is owned by the Schumacher family, whose background includes Schumacher Homes, a large custom home building company based in Canton, Ohio, as well as the investment firm Schu Capital.
Paul Schumacher Sr. and Paul Schumacher Jr. are the cofounders of Esci, which was born out of their passion for skiing and the opportunity they saw in the apres-ski category. The family has partnered with Salvation Brands to bring the brand to market, with White serving as chief executive officer.
White said that after three decades in the industry he saw a need to invest and provide resources to companies with a strong concept but not a lot of support. “What started out as ideas and fun projects grew into bigger things,” he said. “We love building brands; that’s kind of what makes us tick.”
He said each brand “really fills a void that we see in the market” but is run independently. They benefit from using the same back-end operational resources as well as the experience of the Salvation Brands team. “I feel like I’m lending credibility with the decades of experience building exactly what Esci is. It’s not a random idea coming from a place of naivete. We know how to make that product really well.”
With Esci, its concept was “born out of what we saw was a pretty obvious gap in the ski market,” White explained. “Typically, you go to the mountain and put on the highly technical gear you’re actually skiing in. But when you’re done with that experience, you have to go find a new outfit if you want to go back to the lodge, or the home that you’re staying in. There’s really nothing that transitions fluidly between those spaces. There are apres-ski brands, but they tend to serve the high luxury space.”
Although Esci is premium priced, it’s designed to be “sexy and fashionable,” he said. The line opens at $228 and goes up to $448 and includes insulated jackets and vests, fleece hoodies, leggings, quarter-zip mocknecks and joggers.
While it’s not something that should be worn on the slopes, it does offer technical properties such as breathability and insulation. “I wouldn’t recommend skiers to wear anything that isn’t true technical ski outerwear,” White said, pointing to the “extreme waterproofing properties” of materials such as Gore-Tex. “But you can absolutely wear Esci as a mid- or first layer so when you get out of your ski jacket and pants, you can walk straight to dinner.”
He said that a lot of technical ski brands are “boxy and don’t fit right. It’s not what you want to wear to the after party or to hang out in the hotel lobby.”
Schumacher Sr. said: “Our family has always believed in the importance of quality, thoughtful design and creating something that genuinely enhances the way people live. With a shared passion for the mountain lifestyle, we recognized an opportunity to bring that same philosophy to luxury fashion.”
His son added: “When you spend time in mountain destinations, you quickly realize how much of the experience happens beyond the mountain. It’s the long lunches, afternoons with friends, après-ski gatherings, dinners in town and late nights that turn into unforgettable memories. Yet we kept finding ourselves choosing between technical mountain apparel that didn’t necessarily translate to those moments, and fashion pieces that weren’t built for the elements. We saw an opportunity to bring those two worlds together.”
White said that what appealed most to him about the Schumachers’ vision is that “they weren’t simply looking to launch another apparel brand. They had identified a genuine gap in the market, informed by their own experiences and a real passion for the mountain lifestyle. Having spent much of my career building brands at the intersection of performance and lifestyle, I immediately saw the opportunity to create something distinctive. The Schumachers brought a clear vision for what Esci could be, and I was excited to bring my experience in brand building to help turn that vision into a reality.”
With all its brands, Salvation Brands seeks to fill market voids. Bootcap goes on the toe of ski boots to create an insulation barrier and prevents cold from getting in and heat from getting out. They retail for $59.50.
SPC/LST is “very utilitarian” and is targeted to the mature, active, affluent man. The outerwear, pants, shorts, sweats and T-shirts are created from high-end materials but designed to be classic and quiet. Zip hoodies are $155, reinforced Cordura fleece joggers or hoodies are $130, cotton oxford shirts are $125 and a quilted down jacket or parka is $350.
The Brown Buffalo was created by Douglas Davidson, who designed gear for The North Face, Burton and others for 25 years before creating his own brand. The site boasts that the totes, backpacks, duffels, Dopp kits, laptop cases and other products are “designed to be the last bag you’ll ever need.” And each one comes with a lifetime warranty.
“It builds bags with function first, not aesthetics, even though they’re aesthetically pleasing,” White said. “There’s not a single corner cut, a single compromise made. The liner of the bag is as expensive or more expensive than the external material, which is a very rare thing that you don’t see out there.” Yet prices are reasonable, such as duffels for $279 to $299; backpacks for $179 to $189, and a Dopp kit for $39.
Ruby Mint, the women’s beach accessories brand, offers premium beach towels, beach bags, slings, pouches and sarongs. “When you head down to the beach, you grab a towel that may just be something random, it’s not premium,” White said. “Our towels are oversize and made from certified sustainable organic cotton.”
Like the other brands, Esci will launch strictly direct-to-consumer, at least for the foreseeable future.
“We’re definitely open to wholesale and international when the time comes, but right now we are wholly focused on Esci being purely what we want it to be,” he said. “We don’t want to be distracted by having to go to trade shows, set up sales forces and have buyers tell you what to make. Nope. This is our vision and we want to stay pure and focused.”
White said Salvation Brands is not to be confused with the big brand management firms such as Authentic Brands Group and WHP Global, which are getting all the attention these days.
“We’re brand creators,” he said. “We only use the best materials and build things that last a long time and are durable. That’s a thread that runs through all of the brands. We’re trying to build things better. We don’t start from a price point and a line plan and try to work to a margin. It’s not commerce first. It’s serving a need in the market and making the best things we can to fill that gap.”
And he’s in no rush to add to his stable. After five years, the company oversees just five brands. “There isn’t a business plan that says in 2027 we’re going to acquire or invest in a specific number of brands,” he explained. “It honestly comes from a very holistic place. If we see the opportunity, or one comes to us and we feel we can provide value, and we’re inspired by it, then we’ll make it happen.”
He said it’s this “purity” that prompted him to create Salvation Brands. “That’s where the interest was for me: build something and throw out all the rules and commercial framework we’re forced to work within at large brands. We build things in the most pure way, price them appropriately and sell them.”