Meet The Team

Boulder, CO is our home. We are shaped by its beauty and mentored by its mastery. It is our reference, and our starting point to explore an eccentric world.

We are a team of innovators and rule-breakers in a relentless pursuit of progress to inspire a community of intrepid explorers to discover our world and seek new heights.

FOUNDER, DIRECTOR AND POWDER CHASER

Trent Bush

ARTILECT is the creation of founder Trent Bush, who was born into a family deeply rooted in outdoor industry innovation, and has continued carrying those traditions forward in his own way. To understand where ARTILECT is going, it’s important to know where it came from. Going way back, many early pivotal outdoor brands like Holubar, Gerry, and Frostline were founded in Boulder during the formative years of the outdoor industry, bringing the innovative thinking and the technologies of their time into the gear they made, and the communities they built. The roots run deep. This is the lineage and unique understanding Trent Bush was born into, with 5 generations of his family calling Boulder home, where the outdoors were second nature, and Frostline was a part of his extended family. At Frostline, everyone in his family was involved from the kids to the grandparents, and Trent caught the bug early on. Rebelling against his family’s outdoor traditions, Trent jumped head-first into skateboarding and snowboarding, which became obsessions that he would build his career around. At 14, he got his first job working at Wave Rave, the original skate/snowboard shop and apparel brand in Boulder during snowboarding’s earliest years. Not happy with snowboarding’s direction, he left to create his first brand Twist in high school with his brother and friends, ushering in the new-school movement of skate-style snowboarding and style.

Twist became a phenomenon in the anti-establishment snowboard world, creating clothes and sunglasses, along with magazines, videos, and every other means of building their unique culture in the pre-internet years, where art, music, and the cultural side were as important as the activities themselves. After Twist, Trent continued on his path to incorporate innovation and technology into his work, diving deep into all aspects of creating brands and making gear for the things he loved to do, and also to support other users at the highest levels of performance. Trent spent many traveling the world in search of new ideas and possibilities working with many of the world’s best outdoor, action, and snow performance brands, never finding exactly what he was looking for in a brand or its products. Today, with that same pursuit of technology-driven innovation and performance as his primary motivator, it was clear the only path forward would be to go out on his own again, taking a totally different no-rules approach for the next generation. With hard-earned knowledge and a deep history behind him, Trent created ARTILECT and built a team of the best minds in technical apparel and brand-building to join him. Together, they have created a brand where the user is at the centre of the brand experience, empowering next-level performance and discovery for the best days of their lives, from the wildest backcountry spots to the most unknown streets. Welcome to ARTILECT.

TECHNICAL & PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR / NATURE LOVER

SONIA LUNARDON

Sonia grew up in the northern region of Italy, where art, fashion, and technical outdoor apparel all share a long and storied history. From racing suits for Formula 1 and MotoGP, to outdoor expedition gear for some of the top athletes and explorers in the world, Sonia has played a critical role in the development, fit, and performance of apparel built to perform at the absolute highest level. Bringing more than 30-years of experience to her role at ARTILECT, Sonia loves to mix apparel with industrial design, introducing new tech that is both innovative and sustainable. Sonia also likes exploring new trails and destinations with friends and family, and enjoys working in an environment that fosters inclusion, dedication, fun and kindness.

DESIGN DIRECTOR & BOARD ENTHUSIAST

ERICA TESS

Erica was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado and developed a passion for outdoor pursuits at a young age. Her love for design was originally bred from necessity: repairing and altering gear went hand in hand with sports progression throughout her adolescence. She turned this experience into a career, earning a degree in Fashion Design with a focus in active sportswear from The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She has been a professional in the Outdoor industry ever since. She has designed performance apparel for world-class athletes in snow sports, running, surfing, and lifestyle, including the women’s freeski uniforms for the 2018 Olympic Games. Her work has earned many “best of” apparel accolades in buyers guides through the years. She sees special importance in designing elevated gear that actually, truly takes into account the way people think, the way people use and break things, and the way people are shaped. Making sure that human and environmental priority stay top of mind is a core part of her creative process and design philosophy. Erica loves to stand sideways on a board, walk or run uphill, garden, and play outside at home and abroad.