Burton 50 by 50: Celebrating 50 Years of Snowboarding
Few brands can say they've helped create an entire culture. Burton can.
This season, Burton is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the launch of its 50 by 50 project, a year-long celebration honouring five decades of innovation, progression, and the riders who helped shape snowboarding into what it is today. The campaign isn't just about looking back at Burton's history. It's about celebrating the people, communities, shops, filmmakers, and snowboarders who have pushed the culture forward over the last half-century. At Pacific Boarder, the story feels personal. Burton has been a part of our walls, our shop culture, and our local snowboard community. Seeing Burton celebrate this milestone feels like celebrating snowboarding itself.
More Than an Anniversary
The 50 by 50 collection takes riders through five distinct eras of snowboarding, with each release inspired by a different decade of Burton and snowboard history. Burton describes these as chapters that tell the store of how the sport evolved from a fringe activity into a worldwide movement.
The journey begins with 1977-1987, a time when snowboarding was still fighting for acceptance. Burton founder Jake Burton Carpenter was building boards, selling them from his car, and convincing resorts that snowboarding belonged on the mountain. What started as winter's worst new sport" became the foundation for everything that followed.
A Collection Built From the Archives
What makes the 50 by 50 project so special is how Burton has brought iconic pieces back to life.
The first collection revisits Burton's earliest years with archive-inspired apparel, including the return of the 1985 Powder Shell, updated with modern materials and weather protection while maintaining the spirit of the original. Throughout the season, Burton will continue releasing limited collections inspired by each era, blending nostalgia with today's technology and performance standards.
For longtime riders, it's a chance to revisit pieces that helped define snowboarding's identity. For newer riders, it's an opportunity to learn where the culture came from.
Why It Matters to Pacific Boarder
As an independent snowboard shop, we especially connect with Burton's message that snowboarding's history doesn't belong to one brand alone. Burton has made it clear that this celebration belongs to every rider, every local shop, every filmer, every crew, and every community that helped shape snowboarding over the last 50 years.
That's something we see everyday at Pacific Boarder.
Snowboarding has always been bigger than products. It's about friendships, road trips, chairlift conversations, movie premieres, demo days, powder mornings, and the feeling that keeps us coming back every winter. Burton's 50 by 50 campaign celebrates exactly that.
Looking Ahead
One of our favourite parts of Burton's anniversary message is that it doesn't stop in the past. The final era of the 50 by 50 story focuses on the future, recognizing that the next chapter of snowboarding hasn't been written yet. Burton believes the future belongs to the next generation of riders who will continue to redefine what's possible on a snowboard.
From Jake Burton Carpenter building boards in a Vermont barn to the global snowboard community we know today, the story of Burton is inseparable from the story of snowboarding itself.
And we're proud to be a small part of that story.
Here's to 50 years of Burton. And to then ext 50 years of snowboarding.
