Merino strikes gold with Goldwin in Japan

Established in Japan in 1951, the popular Goldwin brand sells premium apparel for running, trekking, skiing and lifestyle markets. The brand’s garments are sold in more than 350 stores across Japan as well as online, generating annual sales worth about A$32 million.

The brand is part of the much larger Goldwin Inc, the fourth largest sports group in Japan that has annual sales worth more than A$1 billion and operates many leading labels in the Japanese market, including The North Face, Helly Hansen, Icebreaker and Speedo.

Goldwin Inc aims to develop its eponymous Goldwin brand into a global premium sports brand in the next decade, with wool as one of the brand’s key material categories.

Goldwin’s expanded product range

With the aim to increase the use of Merino wool apparel by hikers in Japan, the Goldwin brand and Woolmark launched in November a joint autumn/winter marketing campaign for a range of wool blend base-layers. This campaign follows on from a successful joint campaign held in the spring/summer season that targeted trail runners.

The new range includes 11 styles of wool blend base-layer including T-shirts, shirts and leggings, which is more than double the number styles available in the spring/summer collection. The quantity of garments for sale is also more than double the number of the earlier campaign. All the garments are certified for quality by Woolmark.

“Woolmark’s second collaboration with Goldwin is a reflection of the growing relationship between the two companies,” said AWI Regional Manager Japan & Korea, Samuel Cockedey. “By establishing a cooperative relationship with Goldwin, we have seen the brand this season expand its use of Merino wool. We hope that a Merino wool category will become an essential long-term category for the brand.”

As with the previous collection, all the garments are made using an innovative wool blend yarn from leading Japanese spinner Nikke. In contrast to conventional wool-polyester blend yarns that wrap the polyester fibres around the outside of the wool fibre bundle, Nikke’s AXIO® yarn has a spiral-structured polyester fibre wrapped inside the wool fibre bundle.

Because the wool is exposed on the surface of the yarn, AXIO® retains the exceptionally soft texture and feel of pure wool when touching the skin. It also has all the other benefits of wool, such as the ability to reduce post-exercise chill, absorb and release moisture, and resist odours.

Nikke is a long-standing Woolmark licensee that consumes about 2,000 tons of Australian Merino wool each year. Established in 1896, Nikke has been expanding its wool yarn business in the sports and outdoor category through the company’s innovative AXIO® yarn.

Collaborative marketing campaign

The marketing campaign for the new, expanded AXIO® wool collection, which was launched in November, aims to raise consumer awareness in Japan of Merino wool in sports, with a focus on hiking and trekking, as well as driving sales of the Goldwin wool-rich base-layers.

To give added authenticity to the campaign, Woolmark worked closely with Goldwin trekking guide ambassador, Shin Kaneko (pictured above), who is based in a well-known hiking area near Mount Fuji, to highlight and endorse the benefits of the wool blend collection for trekking. Shin Kaneko says that his favourite base-layers are Goldwin's wool T-shirt and wool long-sleeve T-shirt.

“I’ve tried a lot of base-layers, from expensive to cheap, but I think Goldwin’s wool T-shirt and wool long sleeve T-shirt are the most comfortable to wear.”

Shin Kaneko, Goldwin ambassador and
Japanese trekking guide

“I rotate several of them and wear them almost every day. I love how comfortable they are and the simple design. They are made from a hybrid material of Merino wool and synthetic fibres, but the texture and feel are just like Merino wool,” he said.

"For more than five years, I've only been wearing Merino wool or Merino wool blend base-layers. I really like the soft feel of Merino wool and its excellent odour resistance properties.”

The digital aspect of the campaign drove online customers to a dedicated campaign blog page which highlights Shin Kaneko’s comments on the benefits of wool and how important Merino wool base-layers are during trekking and hiking. The blog page links to Goldwin’s e-commerce website which contains an aggregated page containing all the Woolmark-certified products.

The campaign included organic and paid influencer social media posts, promotional e-newsletters to Goldwin’s client base, and paid online advertisements – all aimed at helping drive traffic to the blog page on the Goldwin website. The campaign also included advertorial for the print and online versions of Begin, a men’s lifestyle magazine.

More information: www.goldwin.co.jp

This article appeared in the Autumn 2025 edition of AWI’s Beyond the Bale magazine that was published in March 2025. Reproduction of the article is encouraged.