Snowboarding wouldn’t be the same without so many passionate riders working behind the scenes to help make things better. Today we’re excited to introduce you to Benoît Goncerut — a creative powerhouse who leaves an indelible mark of positivity on everything he touches.
Hey Benoît, Can you introduce yourself for the readers who don’t know you?
Haha.. the hardest question comes first! As we’re talking for a snowboard magazine, let’s say I’m a very mediocre and passionate snowboarder. So yeah, I never thought about that, but I guess considering myself as a snowboarder is what defines me best :)
I managed to get the best out of it. I didn’t judge or commentate any contests, so I took full advantage of my days on the snow. I managed to be free on the best powder days, which are nowadays very precious. I was also in Laax for one week for a documentary project about our friend Greg Tuscher, the head coach of the Swiss Freeski team. I managed to ride in the afternoons trying to do the same tricks that I’ve been doing for the last 10 years. I noticed that every year it’s sketchier, but every year it’s tastier. Oh yes, I finished the season with a little camping trip with my friends from West snowboards at the Col du Simplon and then I went on a trip with Glacier Optics to a secret spot in the Turtmanntal. The conditions were a bit unsafe because of the amount of snow combined with strong winds, but we had great time. Then I was able to put the board away with peace of mind.
I heard that you also went to Saudi Arabia… What was up with that?
Haha hell yes! The new Mecca for snowboarding! I was there with my friend Jules Guarneri working on a documentary about the future of snowboarding and skiing culture. We love to capture things related to human beings; including madness, absurdity, comedy and WTF situations. So when we got the opportunity to film a Big Air event in Riyadh, we were spoiled.
The event was like a classic city Big Air, except that you’re in the middle of the desert, and the prize money and the temperatures are higher than usual. For the snowboard competition, the run-in was too short, plus there was a sandstorm 10 minutes before it started, so the riders were stuck in the transition. It didn’t work the first night, so the next day everyone started shoveling. I’ve been going to contests for 20 years and I’ve never seen an athlete pick up a shovel to help out. Here, the world’s top freestylers were shoveling like never before to make a jump 3 times smaller than usual. I didn’t expect to see a « never been done » in Riyadh, haha. You know, curiously, except for the fact that we were in Saudi Arabia, it felt a bit like the 2000s all over again — joking around, making a jump with friends and getting monumental sunburns.
Anyway we’ve got some incredible footage for the film and it’ll be out next year, if all goes well. The aim of the film is to be seen as much by the freestyle community, as by the general public. You’ll have to interview Jules about it when it’s out!
For sure! I really love the way you guys weave in humor and irony with your sports documentaries, so I’m definitely looking forward to this one.
What other projects are you working on these days?
At the moment it’s a nice mix between working for our brand, Glacier Optics, directing some documentary films, (some related to the mountains and some not) and trying my best to raise my kids, haha!
How did you get into making sunglasses?
My friend Arnaud Cottet and I had been running a project called, “We Ride in Iran” trying to encourage the growth and development of snowboarding, skateboarding and skiing in Iran. But times change and we realized that traveling to Iran was getting more complicated — if not impossible. So we began looking for a new project.
Arnaud had recently come back from an expedition and broken his last pair of vintage sunglasses, so he suggested that we make our own. We knew a bit about the mountain sports industry, but we had no idea about optics. The challenge made us laugh, so we went all in for it.
We messed things up, we made progress, we learned a lot, and 3 years later, we just launched our second model and we are in about fifty specialized sport shops and opticians. We don’t earn much, but we like having our own brand, where can share our vision and values. As we’re 100% independent, we’re going at our own pace, and so far so good!
In the beginning, we did like everyone else did: we contacted factories in Asia. Arnaud even went to China to see various manufactures. When he got back, we asked ourselves, “What’s the point of setting up yet another brand that mass-produces things thousands of kilometers away from home, to resell them by constructing a pseudo-story around the product, only to end up selling off half of your collection because you’ve overproduced?”
For us, getting up every morning to resell some low-end stuff that we don’t stand behind 100% wasn’t really our thing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that there is something for every taste and budget, but in our case, we wanted to set a challenge for ourselves to produce consumer goods such as sunglasses right here in the Alps. I mean, we can make high-precision watches around here, so we should also be able to make sunglasses!
And that’s what we’re doing today: our sunglasses are produced within a 200-kilometer radius of Lausanne, between the Swiss, Italian and French Alps. We want to promote our Alpine heritage and local know-how, and create maximum added value around here. It feels good to personally know the people that are behind our manufacturing. We wanted to get back to something more personal.
Makes a lot of sense…
Let’s talk “Pierredar”. The second silhouette in your collection is pretty different from the first. Is there a story behind the name?
It’s the name of a spot close to home, in the Alpes Vaudoises! Every winter, Arnaud and I ride a run that goes right by the Pierredar hut and glacier. It’s like a pilgrimage and it’s one of the best runs in the region, but please don’t tell anyone! In any case, it’s a special place for us. What’s more, every summer we take care of the hut for one week with my family. You have to come up there. It’s one of the most beautiful sunsets in the world and Charlotte makes some delicious homemade Linz cake with garden jam!
Yes Please! So what does it take to bring a new model into the collection?
That’s the point! It took us a long time to come up with this second model. Initially, we were going for a bio-based model, but we soon realized that it was just a load of greenwashing shit. Let’s face it, every product has an environmental cost and you will never save the planet by buying a product — even the one that is the most sustainable and eco-friendly. So we prefer to assume that every product has an impact, and then concentrate on the product’s lifespan and the possibility of repairing it. That is why we keep pushing fractionating design in order to be able to repair the frames, and not throw away the product just because one element broke down. From the choice of materials to the entire R&D process, it’s really interesting. That’s been one of Arnaud’s focuses and he’s killing it.
In the medium and long term, we’d like to offer a very limited number of models, but with a high degree of customization in terms of size, color, etc. Our aim is to offer a model that revisits each decade. The next one is called « Vorab ». It’s 100% 3D printed and it pays tribute to the 90s. We’re testing them now in Laax. They’ll be available very soon, here is a little sneak peek :)
I had a rather pessimistic opinion until I spent a day in Crans-Montana with Elliot Golay. He literally blew me away! Both in his riding and his vibe. More power to this kid and his crew! Apropos, I saw Livia Tannò riding recently, and she’s incredible!
To come back to your question, I went riding one day in Leysin this year and I was amazed to see so many kids snowboarding. I didn’t understand where they were coming from. Also, if you look closely, you’ll see lots of little jib-park initiatives like Gibloux, Goms or Langispark that make kids want to strap in. Snowboarding is more than alive, It’s just a change in practice as today’s kids have already adapted to global warming. They no longer need a meter of powder or 20 meter kickers — 15 cm of old snow, a rail and a box is more than enough!
Us old guys are trying to adapt too. We enjoy our powder days if, by chance, it snows. We get out the splitboard if, by chance, there are a few days of nice, cool weather. And when everything’s crap, we have fun on plastic tubes, filming ourselves with our iPhones, missing a frontboard for the 8th time in a row. Damn, snowboarding’s good!
With my family we will move to German-speaking part of Switzerland for a while. It’s always good to get a change of place and mentality, trying to make jokes in a language you don’t master. It would also be great for our children if they could speak Swiss German.
If everything continues to go smoothly, what does Glacier look like in five years?
We’ll continue to prioritize small, agile production units, close to their place of use. We aim to distance ourselves from the traditional industrial model and use our watchmaking heritage’s new technologies and manufacturing techniques to produce responsibly and locally. Let’s reinforce the “made where it’s used” idea and maintain strong human relationships between all of the different actors in the sector. This is what makes sense to us.
If the brand grows the way we want it to, we’d like to communicate through Glacier Optics on subjects and people that inspire us. Like a little production company, we want to continue to tell stories through writing, art, photography, video, or anything else that helps to highlight the actions and people around us. And of course I hope we’ll keep riding as much as we can in our beloved Alps!
Anything else that you’d like to add before we wrap this up?
Thanks to Whiteout for all of the effort that you put towards keeping the snowboard culture alive!
