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Natural Perspectives

Stio Senior Designer, Courtney Cedarholm Talks High Point Inspiration and Colors of the Natural World

By Stio

Mountains have always felt like home for Stio senior designer Courtney Cedarholm. Raised in the valley by outdoor parents, she discovered a new, richer perspective on her local environments after returning from fashion school in NYC. For Courtney, inspiration arrives from the mood-lifting hues and confidence-building power of her natural surroundings whether up high on Teton lakes or on quiet, dusty trails in the Gros Ventres. The creative force behind Stio’s vibrant color palette, she also passionately advocates for lifecycle design, intentional function and exquisite constructive detail in her fundamental role of shaping a designer’s vision into final polished form.

Proximity matters to Courtney, but not just because it influences her design thinking but also because of the uplift and confidence she’s always found in outdoor spaces. “The daily access is just really important—looking out my window to see Snow King and the Tetons and making sure that I get to go out there and be a part of it every day,” Courtney says. “When you get up really high in the Tetons and you're at those high alpine lakes, but you're below the peaks, that is always really powerful to me because you gain so much elevation in such a short period of time—it’s like you are on another planet.”

We sat down with Stio’s creative force at valley level to learn more about her lifelong connection to our mountain town, her vibrant perspective on color and where she finds natural influences in the surrounding peaks, even during the summer high season.

What was it like growing up in Jackson and how did that form and shape you?

My parents both moved here in their super-early 20s. My mom was on trail crew. My dad was a NOLS instructor. They just loved Jackson and being in the mountains and really wanted to make their life here. They stayed here and never really left.

We were brought up in a very different Jackson than exists right now. But it was all about camping every weekend, skiing every weekend, and they just really wanted to make sure that we were outside as much as possible because that's what they loved to do. So, they would just cart us with them.

I was born in November and right before my second birthday, my dad took me up on Togwotee Pass. He put me on shaft skis and just held me up on the hill and let me go till I fell over just because he wanted to say I skied when I was a year old.

And then, we grew up in town, right in downtown. Snow King was right there. We were always skiing on Snow King and the rope tow was where you learned to ski. Then you got the lift to Rafferty. Snow King was a really big part of where I learned to ski and learned the importance of being outside.

At the same time my mom sent my sister and I to summer camp in Colorado when we were teenagers. That was also really important in my life growing up, a love of outdoors because it was a place where you got to hike all the mountains instead as much rock climbing as here. Seeing it with other girls your age helped me see why my parents were so obsessed.

“Once I moved back home, I would just drive and look up at the Tetons. I’d seen it my whole life but I had a new perspective.”

And how did you get into the creative world?

From a young age I have been making stuff and knitting and sewing and doing all that kind of stuff. Also, my mom's an artist so she was really made sure I was in every art class in Jackson. It was very accessible.

Somehow, I learned what a fashion designer was and decided that's what I wanted to be when I was in third grade. I told my mom I wanted to be a fashion designer. Then I moved to New York City when I was 18 and I went to fashion school. It was very weird moving to a city because, where I was from, you went outside on the weekends.

It was just such an important part of my life that I couldn’t really live full-time in a city because I am so used to the insane access here and the visual of just driving around and seeing the mountains. Once I moved back home, I would just drive and look up at the Tetons. I'd seen it my whole life but I had a new perspective.

Was there a moment in the city where you realized how you thought about art and creativity was different because you didn't come from that other background of the other folks that you were around?

Yeah, definitely. My whole experience in school I kept trying to make things functional and beautiful, and I never quite understood peer fashion. It was a big thing growing up here since all of our clothes had to be rugged. I always tried to just wear flip flops starting at spring break but that's not a thing here because there's still snow on the ground.

I didn't really also know how to dress in the city because what you have to wear here is very different, your shoes have to live up to the changing weather all the time. You need a rugged pant on at all times and you can't just be out for look—you have to be warm.

Layering was a really funny thing to me going back and forth because I would always think the weather was going to change—but people would tell me it just stayed hot in the summer. When I moved back home to Jackson, I was back in layer-land.

But there was also this part of me that wondered why does it have to look so outdoor? How do you combine those ideas of something that's really beautiful and expresses who you are, but then lives up to the function you need. I don't think they have to be separate ideas.

“One thing I bring in at Stio is taking what’s happening out in the natural world and bringing it into the clothing.”

How do you think having natural beauty around you affects your creative process or your design process? Can you describe how that affects what you do?

I wouldn't consider myself an athlete, so even though I grew up here and I love hiking and I love skiing and everything, I don't have that drive that athletes who live here have. But it's so important for me to spend all that time outdoors and it's really important for my mental health and everything, so I really love the idea of having these clothes that can just move with you wherever you land and whatever you're doing in a day.

And, I love color, so being able to wear bold fun colors that can really change your mood. I think being in a smaller town and not in a city, you have a little more flexibility of what you can wear since it's more of a casual vibe.

You spoke about the ability to get a little space, to get off on a hike, to drive on a dirt road. Is there something about having access to that kind of natural world around you that influences how you think about things or how your process of creation works?

Color combos are a big thing. I'll just be driving and look out and see this crazy blue sky and grass and dusty sagebrush. There's all these interesting combinations of color depth and saturation, and I'm always trying to figure out how you can make that in reality, but it's pretty elusive. It's hard to ever fully re-create that, but some days, I'm just wow, this is so crazy, I can't believe how well those colors all work together.

I've been loving the fall, how the yellow up against a clear blue sky is so pretty. One thing I bring in at Stio is taking what’s happening out in the natural world and bringing it into the clothing. I feel color especially can really be a mood changer. There’s something about being outside and seeing all those dusty hues and bright wildflowers together that just lifts your mood.

Do you have one favorite place that you go kind of in the area that always speaks to you and always inspires you?

I'd say a combination. When you get up really high in the Tetons and you're at those high alpine lakes, but you're below the peaks, that is always really powerful to me because you gain so much elevation in such a short period of time—it’s like you are on another planet.

And because you're staring at the Tetons so much during the day it's really cool to be up in there because you get this whole different view of them and it's just so beautiful. But then also, I think it's a combination of just driving a little bit across the valley to the Gros Ventres. When you hike back in there, it's a whole different feeling.

I've also been really enjoying exploring all these other corners of the valley because it might not be the most famous but then you get there and it's just as beautiful in a unique manner. I never thought to get a guidebook because you just have the hikes you did, but I bought the classic Jackson Hole Hiking book and it was fun to just flip to a page and think I've never done this hike, let's go do it.

Can you describe one thing in nature that you feel is just a perfect evolutionary design, that you as a designer really appreciate when you see it out there?

That's such a hard question. It's just the whole ecosystem in general, how everything works together and everything needs each other, and it feels like this really thoughtful teamwork. It's the best team ever basically because, when I was going through a hard time in my life, I remember someone telling me ‘you know when you go outside, really look around and realize the world is such a beautiful place because all this stuff is just happening around us and humans are not really involved’.

We are involved because we're affecting it negatively. But there's all this stuff happening that we just don't create, and so we're always trying to create perfect stuff but when you go outside, it's just everything is just happening in its own way and with its own reason and it's giving something to someone else and supporting someone.

The whole cycle is what is really inspiring to me and what I keep pushing is how do we design not just for what something looks like, but how it's made, how its life cycle ends, how it moves into something else. I think we're at the very, very beginning of that whole discovery as humans, but earth is just doing it. It's just crazy to me.

How would you describe Stio's perspective on life cycle design?

Right now, it's about that layering system. The longer I work here and the more pieces I have and I always find that it's the combination of function and color. But I can pair one insulation with one shell for this type of experience or this type of end use. If I'm going into a wet environment like a rainy backpack, then I'm going to choose my synthetic insulation versus my down because I know that performs better when wet, and it's lighter.

Everything just keeps building upon each other so it really feels like this kind of modular wardrobe system where you can just keep buying pieces and they'll keep working together in different manners. I feel all of our clothes are kind of season-less because it depends on where you are and what you're doing, what environment you live in...but it's really the more I learn about how materials work and work together and the more we educate our customers on that.

I think outdoor in general does a lot of the traditional design elements that are very modular. One my goals now is how to build on those systems moving forward and come up with new systems so that pieces can work together in new unexpected ways, so that you're buying one piece and you can keep wearing it for a long time because as you add other pieces in, it all works in a different manner.

“We put as much thought and care into your button-up shirt as we do your ski jacket.”

From a designer's standpoint, how would you describe Stio's perspective on design?

We care as much about your technical pieces as your lifestyle pieces. We put as much thought and care into your button-up shirt as we do your ski jacket. And that goes for the design, the color, the fit, the finish. We love everything to be beautiful inside and out.

We spend a lot of time on the interiors which is not something that you first notice as a customer, but you'll notice in the wearing. I love to just turn a garment inside out and make sure that I love how it looks in there as well as on the exterior with the proportion. We have a lot of collaboration between design and the product developers on how we make everything beautiful inside and out.

And the color aspect is very different from the rest of the outdoor industry in that we do have that balance of clear and dusty. We take a little more color risk and want to make sure that it feels different when you're walking around. Not everything has to be dull—you can wear bright, bold colors but you can also wear soft, dusty ones. Then when you mix them together you get this very elevated look.

What does the term mountain life mean to you?

I think a mountain town definitely means community... being part of a community and people really caring about that community and working together to protect it and create that community. Then also mountain towns are really fun. They are really being about living your life versus feeling you're having to chase some financial goal all the time.

That's why my parents originally lived here was just to be able to live to your values versus having to compromise on some of those really important non-financial values. So that's what I want to try to work towards in my life—make sure my values coincide with how I'm living my life. Work needs to be balanced with experiences and being outdoors is one of those really important ones for me.

Why is it important for you that the kind of brand that you design for values things like sustainability, conservation, and ecosystem life cycles? Why is that an important thing?

In my generation, we are just very passionate about making sure that better decisions are made. We've seen how when it's only about finances, we're now in this place of the climate crisis. It just feels really important to make sure that when you're working on something, that you're also considering all the other outcomes of what you're producing and to me, making clothes is a very big deal—you're creating something that you're bringing into the world.

So, it is important to make sure that that it really has reason to exist and that it's doing something and it's doing something positive and bringing someone happiness and bringing someone warmth or protection when they're doing something that makes them really happy.

Being really thoughtful about all those steps and where the materials are coming from, who's making it, how it affects all those lives all the way through to the customer – I'm always thinking about that kind of stuff.

I want to make sure where I'm working and where I'm helping create product and being a part of bringing all this stuff into the world that those values align with mine because you don't want to be compromising your values every day.

If you could thank nature for one thing, what would it be?

I think for helping me find confidence in myself that having growing up and being, at first, forced to hike mountains and then later by choice. At first you think you can’t do it, you want to quit. But then you’re at the top. It helps me through a lot of tough situations to know I can go back to that place physically and remember when you didn’t think you could hike up that mountain but then you did. You can probably pitch an idea or do a public speaking or be in a photo shoot. So, I think that's the biggest thing it's taught me.