The North Face & Griff Host New York Dinner for Mountain Jacket

On Thursday night, the coat check inside Lower East Side restaurant Casino was unusually quiet for wintertime. But the crowd had a good reason to keep their outerwear on: The North Face and campaign face Griff were hosting a dinner in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the brand’s Mountain jacket.

“I was touring America when this project came up and they were like, ‘come to Denver.’ I’d just toured there, so it was nice to come back, see where they’re based. It was super chill and easy,” said Griff of getting to work with the outerwear brand.

For Thursday’s dinner, Griff was dressed in the same red-hued jacket she wears in the campaign, paired with a Cecilie Bahnsen dress and a bag from the designer’s collaboration with The North Face, which will launch this spring.

Griff has entered “writing mode” after wrapping up her latest tour. “I just toured all over the U.S. for the last year, and now it’s time to hibernate again and get inspired,” said the British musician. “I find a lot of inspiration in being near the countryside, because I grew up in the suburbs. So usually I try to retreat somewhere that’s really remote and be outdoors, and find peace and solace in that. So that’s probably my next move: try to find a little cabin out in the woods.”

Her immediate next move, however, was kicking off dinner with a toast and round of tequila shots for the room. The intimate dinner featured familiar New York fashion faces — Emily Ratajkowski, Evan Mock, Iris Apatow, editors — as well as a few guests who are more likely to be found outside, like freeride skier Dennis Ranalter.

The North Face athlete and pro climber Brooke Raboutou, who won a silver medal at the Olympics last summer, had flown in from Boulder and attended the dinner alongside brother Shawn Raboutou, also part of the North Face family.

Last fall, Brooke walked the Cecilie Bahnsen runway during Paris Fashion Week wearing a look from the designer’s collaboration with the brand.

“I was so grateful for The North Face for putting me in that and opening up that door to the fashion world, because it’s something I’ve always been interested in. To walk in Paris Fashion Week was pretty insane,” said Raboutou, who wore a jacket from the collaboration for the New York event.

She’s planning to head to Europe this spring to work on a few climbing projects, “and then hoping to find some new ones,” she said. “It’s a rare year for me away from competitions, and I’m focusing more on outdoor climbing. So I’m really excited to get to dive into that and not have too much of an agenda, but just see where it takes me.”

The North Face had put its touch on the entire Casino space, from the brand logo projected on the exterior to the room’s red lighting and name cards, printed on a small rectangle of the Mountain jacket’s Gore-Tex fabric.

“The Mountain jacket has been an icon for us for 40 years,” said The North Face chief marketing officer Dennis Seydel. “It was first really built for exploration to the furthest parts of the planet. And in the mid-’90s, it was adopted by culture, and it’s really become an icon over 40 years. We really wanted to celebrate that moment.”