Tony McWilliam, founder Faction Skis (Bonus Episode #19)

The Ski Podcast

In this Ski Podcast Special, we meet Tony McWilliam, founder of one of the world's leading snowsports brands - Faction Skis.
We find out what inspired him to start the company and how it took it to become one of the most famous freestyle ski brands in the world.
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SHOW NOTES

• Tony designed my first brochure for my first business, Natives.co.uk
• You can listen to our Ski Podcast Special with Pat Sharples here
• Faction skis started in 2003
• BoardX took place in Battersea for several years
• You can listen to our Ski Podcast with Jim Adlington here
• Other key contacts for Tony in the early years were Phil Martin, Gordy Hughes and Matt Reardon
• He worked closely with Peter Bauer, founder of Amplid
• The first range of Faction skis had a waist of 80-110mm
• Initially the skis were made in Annecy before production moved to Austria
• Skis like the Seth Pistol were an inspiration
• Jamie Strachan's designs for Volkl were another influence
• The first run of Faction skis was just 44 pairs - they now sell 35,000 pairs every year globally
• Sam Smoothy is a NZ freeride skier
• Ski Service in Verbier was the first store to stock Faction Skis
• Tony first met Candide Thovex as a 16-year-old rider in Les Arcs
• Check out Candide in China here (he took 27 pairs of skis with him for that shoot!)
• Tony launched an eco-friendly outerwear brand, GHOSTS, on Kickstarter in 2019
• He also worked with Eric Pollard - ex-Line Skis - on the launch of the new ski and snowboard range Season Eqpt
• Find out about Candide's outerwear brand