Some brands begin with a want. A desire for the perfect T-shirt, or maybe jeans that fit just right. Czech outerwear brand Tilak began in 1986 with a need: its founder, competitive mountain climber Roman Kamler, desperately needed sturdy expedition equipment as a member of the Czechoslovak national climbing team, equipment that was simply unavailable in the then-socialist country.
That need sparked a bit of punk entrepreneurship, as Kamler sewed his own sleeping bags and other gear on a suitcase sewing machine. The turning point came in 1993 — the same year the country dissolved, as Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic and Slovakia. That year, Kamler secured a GORE-TEX license, allowing his tiny Czech operation to build products to the same waterproofing standard as the world’s biggest outdoor brands. (GORE-TEX, for those not well-versed in technical fabrication, maintains exacting control over the entire production process to ensure the quality is never compromised.)
Four decades in, Tilak has grown into a full-fledged outdoor apparel brand with a select circle of collaborators. Its legacy runs deep — deep enough, in fact, to fill 360 pages of an upcoming 40th-anniversary book documenting its lore, collaborative releases, and archival imagery. The book will, fittingly, sell as a package with a limited-edition "Alpamayo 40" jacket and a one-off patch.
It's these alpine-worthy jackets that have attracted collaborators ranging from cool-guy Italian adventure label ROA and cult Japanese brand SOPHNET to the Berlin-based creative agency Beinghunted., all while outfitting the Czech Republic’s Mountain Rescue Service. No matter which brand it works with, Tilak has never left home: the company still produces its products in the Czech Republic.
This home-grown approach is crucial for the founder, who vowed never to move production to Asia or China. “It is crucial for me to maintain absolute control over quality,” he told Forbes Česko in 2021. “Even at the cost of being at the limits of production capacity and limiting our turnover growth.” (This held even after the company sold that year to investment group Perinpe, with Kamler staying on as Head of Product Development.)
That manufacturing know-how first attracted Tilak’s most important collaborator, ACRONYM co-founder Errolson Hugh, a quarter-century ago. Hugh began designing for the brand in the early 2000s, in exchange for Tilak's help manufacturing ACRONYM’s own outerwear range. Though Hugh isn't actively designing Tilak gear anymore, the long partnership allowed Hugh to see firsthand the commitment that fuels the Czech brand. “Tilak is legitimate in every aspect. These are real products, made by real people who identify with and care about what they do,” he tells Highsnobiety. “Tilak is the real deal. Every product they have made in the past 40 years backs this up.”
Ahead of the anniversary book’s release on November 6, we spoke with three collaborators who’ve worked alongside Tilak over the years to understand what keeps them coming back to this small but mighty Czech brand.
Errolson Hugh, Co-Founder of ACRONYM
You came to Tilak on a recommendation around 2000 and moved fast. What did you see in a small Czech mountaineering manufacturer that hooked you?
You have to imagine that this was in 2000 or 2001. There was no social media. No e-commerce; not even the web as we understand it today. Everything was word of mouth. And we had gotten a recommendation for Roman's factory from Stefan Marschar at W.L. Gore [which licenses and produces GORE-TEX]. Stefan was the guy who decided if your garment was waterproof. Not just waterproof but ”GORE-TEX Guaranteed to Keep You Dry” waterproof. He ran the tests, and he told you how to fix it if you failed.
After looking at our first jacket prototype, he basically said to us, “There's only one factory in Europe that can make this jacket.” And that was Tilak.
We bought a map, plotted the course, and jumped in the car. It was a seven-and-a-half-hour drive. Roman rapped on our car window as we wolfed down sandwiches in his parking lot. It was a great introduction. Turns out he was also the kind of person who ate in his car and would do whatever it took to get things done. We connected on that level immediately.
Inside the factory, we saw that for Roman, Tilak wasn't a factory; it was a tool he built to make things his life depended on during his expeditions. We talked about quality and reliability, redundancies and failsafes. He was our kind of guy, and Tilak was our kind of factory.
Tilak jacket models like the Evolution, Ogre and Latok went through years of testing and refinement. How did it compare with ACRONYM’s process?
It's actually not different at all. Product development at Tilak and Acronym follows the same methodology, just with different end-use parameters. Sometimes, not even that. In the early days, we even shared a few models. Ours had different names and were usually all black, but we shared the same materials, design, and manufacturing. We tested the Ogre prototypes simultaneously on glaciers and in Harajuku. They worked in both places, so we ran the design in both collections.
Real technical apparel always follows a rigorous design and development path. There is no faking it. You can't simulate it or risk it, so you have to make it. You have to prototype and test it until nothing goes wrong. Until there are no failures. Until it works. Until you can rely on it to keep working for years.
Jörg Haas, Founder of Beinghunted.
How did you get involved with Tilak, and how has your relationship with them evolved over the years?
I got to know Tilak through Errolson as ACRONYM’s production partner when we were both still in Munich. It was such a great story that ACRONYM operated out of my hometown, and its production was in the Czech Republic, rather than America or Japan. And then I first saw Errolson and Roman work together in Berlin. We both moved there in 2005 and were neighbors: I was in the [Beinghunted.] store, and Errolson lived and worked from his apartment next door. For twenty years I followed both brands’ trajectories, and in 2020 we worked on a project for ACRONYM’s 20th anniversary [of collaborating with Tilak].
To me, a jacket has always been the most impactful signifier in someone’s wardrobe. ACRONYM was the 2000s equivalent for me. In the early days, with only a handful of global retailers, if you saw someone wearing an ACRONYM jacket or bag, you knew there was some link to Errolson or Michaela, Pe at Bagjack, or maybe even Tilak.
How was it to make that collaborative jacket?
For Beinghunted.’s 20th, I wanted to create something similar. A jacket that’s visible, with subtle branding — one that people in the know could recognize. Roman was kind enough to agree to our concept and freed up some production capacity to fit our 30 pieces into his otherwise busy schedule. We picked available GORE-TEX fabrics based on a color scheme, Tilak matched the hardware, did one sample, and that was it. No messing around for months.
We then took the jackets to Denmark, where Adam Katz Sinding shot our Beinghunted. team in a casual outdoor setting. Not the tough environment this jacket was originally designed for, but that’s part of “jacket culture”, too. A bit of a flex, showing off. So now, if you see someone with this jacket, you know it came directly from us, from me.
Elia Fornari, General Manager at ROA
Before ROA and Tilak officially worked together, did a Tilak piece or any specific brand details inspire your own products?
Definitely the Stinger Jacket. What interested us was how resolved it felt without being over-designed. Every detail has a reason to be there: the construction, the articulation, the placement of pockets, the hood and together these functional decisions create the identity of the jacket. That’s something we’ve always been interested in at ROA: when performance and function become the design language rather than something that is added afterward.
What surprised you most about working with a manufacturer like Tilak that's managed to stay relevant and attract brands to it for collabs?
It’s about quality. We truly believe that a company that invests in its product for the sake of making the best possible product, not just for marketing, is what lets a brand prosper for so long.
With Tilak, you can see how they’ve worked on the same “canvas” for decades, innovating, testing, refining, and then doing it all over again. This mentality of constant refinement is something we really share with Tilak. The first iteration [of our footwear] is just the beginning. Even when a product is already on the market, you still have to keep testing it, learning from it, and going back to the drawing board.
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