RUGGED WEAR, COLORADO STYLE.

• Author: ANDERSON, BRIAN

STATE'S IMAGE DRIVES THE BRANDS OF TWO DENVER SPORTSWEAR COMPANIES

OK, so they're not The North Face or Patagonia.

Still, two Denver-area companies, Englewood-based SCI, which markets Ouray Sportswear, and Denver's Colorado Trading & Clothing Co., are staking a claim in the highly competitive $550 billion worldwide garment market. Surprisingly, both are going about it in similar ways.

SCI, an older company, has the bigger imprint: $28 million in sales projected for 2000. Colorado Trading posted $10 million in sales in 1999, its first full year of operations. Besides being successful, both companies also:

* Make fleece jackets, pullovers and vests, some of the hottest items in outdoor apparel today

* Embrace the image of a rugged, Rocky Mountain lifestyle to market their products.

* Plan to increase sales by marketing their clothing to corporate buyers for use in promotional and morale-building campaigns.

No, we're not talking about technical outerwear companies like Boulder Gear in Basalt that find their shelf space in high-end ski shops. SCI and Colorado Trading make a more basic, practical and inexpensive kind of sportswear, but you can find it in resort shops from the rocky shores of Washington state to the sands of South Florida.

WARMING UP TO FLEECE

The one product category that is a major part of both the Ouray Sportswear and Colorado Trading brands is high-pile polyester fleece outerwear. It is soft, lightweight, wrinkle-free, and has moisture-wicking and insulation properties that keep the wearer dry and warm.

While the well-known Polarfleece and PolarTec names are trademarked fabrics of Maiden Mills, similar fleece fabrics at lower prices are available from other sources. And variations, like nubby-textured Berber fleece and microfleece, which is even softer and lighter than conventional polyester fleece, are extremely hot at retail.

"It's the perfect fabric for the climate that we seem to be having now," said Jeff Schmitt, founder, president and COO of Colorado Trading. "I think people in their 30s and beyond grew up in sweatshirts -- (polyester) fleece wasn't really around at that time -- whereas for people in their teens and 20s, it really is the fabric that they've started to embrace and prefer over some of the cotton fleece and sweaters."

Bigger companies like The North Face, Patagonia and Columbia Sportswear were largely responsible for popularizing fleece in Colorado and other mountain areas, but Mark Musselman, SCI's...