Moah was founded in 2002 when we started selling homemade t shirts at Portobello market in London. Those were amazing days full of a creative buzz that has stayed with the company ever since. We’d get up at 3.30 am on Saturday morning and drive up to London.

We'd then set up our stall out of whatever we could lay our hands on and sell t shirts and hoodies for 10 hours. There couldn’t have been a better starting point for a brand and we got to meet so many people, all of whom gave us direct feedback about our designs and ideas. Getting face to face with customers like this was invaluable and allowed us to find out what people liked and wanted. We started off using and selling the best t shirts we could find, made in a sweat shop free environment. These humble roots shaped the brand and company and reinforced our desire to create an environmentally and socially responsible business.

In 2004 Moah was incorporated and became a limited company. Our market days had been brilliant, but we realised that we couldn’t make a real living selling t shirts from a market stall forever. We had discovered a niche that we had the opportunity to develop and move into and realised that we needed to step things up in terms of product and organisation if we wanted to create the kind of unique brand we’d always dreamed about.

A passion for snowboarding and the outdoors, coupled with the fact that we could never find the sort of gear that we wanted to wear lead to a logical progression. Rather than hanging around waiting for someone else to make better outerwear, we’d do it ourselves! This was a pretty daunting challenge compared to making your own t shirts, but the more difficult people told us it would be, the more determined we became to create a truly independent brand that wasn’t owned by some faceless corporation, masquerading as a lifestlye brand that cares about its customers and the outdoors.

After a few false starts, winter 05/06 saw the first ever Moah outerwear range, consisting of one jacket and one pant style. The Stealth Jacket was one of the best products we’ve made so far because of its raw, functional style and technical appeal. Offered in 4 colours, the Stealth was a very successful jacket and initial sales were really encouraging. Moah outerwear was alive and kicking! We’re thinking about relaunching the Stealth jacket one day, with a few refinements, getting back to our simple, functional roots. We’ll let you know when that happens.

At the end of 2006, we became the UK’s 25th member of an organisation called 1% For the Planet. This is a group of international businesses who donate at least 1% of annual turnover to grassroots environmental action groups.

To find out more see www.onepercentfortheplanet.org. We knew that what we were doing caused damage to the planet and so this was a realistic way in which we could start to make amends for and reduce this impact.

The next three years disappeared in a hectic blur. We had a strong new brand identity and a boat load of passion but the real work had begun in trying to pin down exactly where we wanted the business to go and find out how to build a successful brand - one that was true to our original ambitions. Winter 06/07 saw our range expand into womens and kids wear and multiple styles in each and sales increased by 400%. For summer 07 we launched a pioneering, limited edition range of 100% certified organic cotton t shirts. The t shirts were approved by the Soil Association and printed with vegetable based inks. They went down a storm with our customers and reminded us that people are hungry for ethical products that stand up when scrutinised and look amazing.

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride at times but now we find ourselves at the beginning of our third winter season. There have been some major changes in the past year when we analysed every aspect of the business and then began pruning radically until we were happy with what was left. We overhauled our whole business model, found a more committed and capable manufacturer and took full control of our supply chain. This necessary process was very cathartic and reminded us of our reason for being - to create an amazing product for the sports we love and look after the planet at the same time. Winter 07/08 sees our strongest range of snowboarding outerwear to date with vastly superior manufacturing, excellent and inspirational designs and materials and a high-end snowboarding product with a distinctly unique feel and approach.

Over the summer, we even found time to renovate and move into a new office and fill it with recycled and reclaimed furniture and fittings. Read more about The Lab here.

Projects like this move us a step closer to our ultimate ambition. We’ve always believed and intend to prove that you can run a successful and ethical / responsible business that benefits the world around it, rather than just exploiting the planet and getting rich in the process. These are lofty ambitions and Moah is very much a work in progress, but we are getting there, step by step, striving to continually improve not only our product, but the way in which we run our company and how it affects the world around us and the people who live in it.

So this is Moah, a truly independent, responsible, British snowboarding brand run by passionate people. We love what we do, so expect to see and hear a lot more from us over the coming year.