Who's Matty Benedetto you ask?
Matty is a badass skier who helped pioneer the newschool movement, a business dude who launched one of freeskiing’s earliest rebel clothing brands while still in high school, a vocal leader of the LGBTQ+ ski community, and the most relentless, creative, and hilarious entrepreneur I know!
Matty grew up skiing the East Coast with his family, making trips from NYC to Gore Mountain to ski race every weekend in the winter. In his teens, he'd sneak away from race practice during lunch to take park laps with his freestyle crew.
In the early 2000's, Matty's love for freeskiing led him to Newschoolers.com (http://newschoolers.com/) where he discovered the "Crochet Cult," forum where he learned how to knit hats and eventually started a business designing, producing, and selling these hats nationwide. Above is a photo of Matty in the early days shipping EC Headwear. He even sponsored pros like LJ Strenio and Tom Wallisch while being a full time student at St. Mike's college!
Matty shares the importance of having a healthy community around him:
“Back in high school, I felt like I didn’t relate to a lot of the other kids; I didn’t know where I belonged. When I went skiing on the weekends, that was my community. I came out years later after bottling it up for too long, opening an entirely new community to me. If I had known I would find this community back then, I would have come out a lot sooner! Now I live the life I want, instead of the life I thought others expected of me.”
Matty's vision for the topsheet graphic was clear from the start, telling me “Winter Rendezvous Gay Ski Week at Stowe is always one of my favorite events of the year! This graphic is the embodiment of all of those different personalities within the LGBTQ+ and ski communities. If you look closely, you’ll see me with my best straight ally Joe Tyson, my partner Randy, and tons of other people and memories from the event over the years.”
"I love the feeling of the community, everyone showing up exactly how they want to show up, how they want to be represented."
The base graphic came from a sticker that Matty gave me a few years ago and I've had on my desk ever since. It's a genius play on my original “I am a skier” shirt that I made for Line back in the day. He’s a creative wizard, always making things his own, and was so stoked to finally put the words from this sticker loud and proud across the base of his ski.
In support of Pride and this collaboration with Matty, we’re donating $5,000 regardless of sales of this product to “Outright VT” who’s mission is building a Vermont where all LGBTQ+ youth have hope, equity, and power.
