Fragment and Mammut Bring the Barryvox Back in Glacier Blue

Hiroshi Fujiwara’s second Mammut avalanche beacon leaves the Barryvox S2’s rescue brain untouched and changes nearly everything you can see.

An avalanche transceiver is the rare piece of gear built around a day its owner hopes never comes. It rides on the chest in transmit mode from trailhead to car park, and if a slope releases, it becomes the tool that either locates a buried partner or gets its wearer located. On October 1, that unglamorous object gets a second pass from Hiroshi Fujiwara, as Swiss mountain sports company Mammut and Fujiwara’s design project Fragment release the Barryvox S2 FRGMT Edition, a Glacier Blue reworking of Mammut’s current flagship beacon, alongside a pair of co-branded midlayers.

 

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Signal. What happened: Mammut and Fragment announced a second collide Barryvox avalanche transceiver plus two commemorative apparel pieces, with a Tokyo pre-sale ahead of a nationwide Japan launch and a global release to follow. Exact object: Barryvox S2 FRGMT Edition, ¥88,000 including tax, with the Barryvox ML Hooded Jacket (¥20,900) and Barryvox ML Crew Neck (¥17,600), each in white or platinum mélange, sizes M, L and XL. When and where: pre-sale October 1 to 4, 2026 at Mammut Shinjuku during the MAMMUT INNOVATION 2026 event, limit quantity and one per customer; Japan-wide release October 15 through Mammut stores (outlets excluded) and the official Japanese online store; overseas date not yet announced. Source: Mammut Sports Group Japan’s official press release and Mammut Japan’s event notice. Why it matters: it is a streetwear-grade collision applied to a life-safety device, and the stated goal on both sides is getting more people on snow carrying a beacon at all. Earlier DRIFT: recent coverage of the UNION x Nike Dunk Low SP touched on Fragment’s February 2026 Air Jordan 1 project with Union, part of a busy year for Fujiwara’s label.

Mammut Japan’s announcement, published September 24, is candid about the motivation. Fujiwara uses a Barryvox himself in the backcountry, and the rel describe the project as the overlap of two wishes: a higher adoption rate for avalanche beacons, and more people able to enjoy snowy mountains safely. Mammut adds that it intends to use the connection to push aware of why the device matters, both for current backcountry skiers and riders and for people still thinking about their first tour.

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The design brief here was narrow by necessity. Nobody wants a designer rethinking the search algorithm of a rescue device, and the release says as much: the FRGMT Edition performs exactly like the standard Barryvox S2. What Fragment was given to work with is the shell, the branding and the screen. The exterior color has been changed, a dedicated “FRGMT + MAMMUT” logo sits on the front of the body, and the startup animation that plays when the unit powers on differs from the regular model. Glacier Blue accents are spread across the device, which Mammut frames as a view and usable choice rather than pure decoration, the same logic that informs the bright tincture on most avalanche gear.

Underneath sits the Barryvox S2, which Mammut introduced on October 15, 2024 as a smaller, faster successor in its transceiver line. Mammut’s North American team said the device took four years to develop with input from athletes, patrollers and partners. The S2 is 6 mm thinner than its predecessor and, according to a detailed rundown from the Swiss outlet LACRUX, about 30 grams lighter, landing at 180 g in a 115 x 68 x 21 mm body that runs on two AAA batteries.

The headline change on the S2 was its screen. Mammut calls its Memory-in-Pixel display a first for beacons, design to stay legible in direct sun and through polarized goggles while drawing less power. The three-antenna device keeps a 70-meter search strip width, adds acoustic guidance for the early coarse search, and uses a fine search guide that calculates the nearest point to a buried signal and shows when to start probing, include an indicate of burial depth. Pairing with the Barryvox app handles firmware updates and unlocks a Training Park mode for simulated search drills. None of that is altered on the FRGMT unit, which is precisely the point.

A close-up product shot of a white and grey Barryvox S2 avalanche transceiver featuring a black screen, blue buttons, and the Mammut logo.

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As in 2023, the device arrives with two pieces of clothing supervised by Fragment rather than a full capsule. Their official names place them in Mammut’s technical lexicon: the Barryvox ML Hooded Jacket and the Barryvox ML Crew Neck, with “ML” standing for midlayer in the Japanese product listing. So while the flex is being describe in some coverage as a hoodie and a crewneck, Mammut position both as layer piece.

The graphics work as a two-part system. One motif places MAMMUT and FRGMT wordmarks on Fragment’s thunderbolt; the other shows Mammut’s mammoth breaking loose from that thunderbolt. The placement flips between garments. On the hooded jacket, the wordmark thunderbolt sits on the chest and the escaping mammoth takes the back. On the crew neck, the mammoth is on the front and the wordmark version runs across the back.

Both come in white and platinum mélange, a heathered grey, in sizes M, L and XL. The Hooded Jacket is ¥20,900 and the Crew Neck ¥17,600, tax included. Like the beacon, they will be sold at Mammut stores across Japan and through the official online store, with outlet locations excluded.

The palette is a reticent change from the first round. The 2023 apparel pair came in white and black, printed with the same mammoth-and-thunderbolt concept plus a large Barryvox S logo on the left sleeve, according to MEN’S NON-NO’s coverage at the time. The move to platinum mélange softens the set and sits closer to the pale blue of this year’s device.

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The pre-sale is part of something larger than a product drop. MAMMUT INNOVATION 2026 is billed by Mammut Japan as its first large-scale exhibition event, running October 1 to 4 at Mammut Shinjuku. Hours are 11:00 to 18:30 on Thursday, 11:00 to 20:00 on Friday, 10:00 to 18:30 on Saturday and 10:00 to 20:00 on Sunday.

Entry for shoppers runs on a lottery-numbered ticket system. Queue is only valid in a set window before open (9:30 to 9:59 on October 1 and 2, 8:30 to 8:59 on October 3 and 4), and everyone in line at the cutoff draws a number that sets their entry order, so arrive first does not guarantee going in first. Mammut notes that a ticket guarantees entry, not stock. Purchases from the Fragment collection are capped at one per person.

The Fragment beacon is one of seven “innovations” Mammut is using the event to introduce for the season. The others are a seven-piece collection with eYe JUNYA WATANABE MAN (six apparel pieces and one bag); Eiger Free 2.0, a freeride extension of the Eiger Extreme line; ALPS, an urban collection developed with Italian design house Pininfarina; a thirteen-piece DRY DOWN insulation range treated with a PFC-free water repellent; Mammut’s main partnership with the Hasetsune Cup, the roughly 71.5 km Okutama mountain endurance race on October 11; and its role with the Freeride World Tour, where Mammut signed on in 2024 as official safety partner for four seasons.

The space also includes an oversized overhanging boulder attraction called HANG ROCK, promoted around Mammut ambassador and actor Junichi Okada, which visitors aged 16 and up can attempt free of charge by reservation. Evening talk shows on October 1 and 3 feature hiking YouTubers Kaho and MARiA, open to members of Mammut’s loyalty program by application.

After the event, the beacon and apparel reach Mammut’s other stores in Japan on October 15. Mammut says the overseas release date will be announced later.

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The template for this release was set in November 2023, when the two sides launched the Barryvox S FRGMT Edition. That model was built on the previous-generation Barryvox S and finished in what Mammut called Safety Orange, again with a special logo on the front and a custom startup animation, again with base performance unchanged. Japan got it first, on November 23, 2023, priced at ¥63,800 per WWD JAPAN’s report. Mammut’s international release listed a recommended retail price of €450 with a mid-December EMEA launch, and the unit went on display at ISPO Munich from November 28 to 30 on the booth of Highsnobiety, which Mammut described as a partner.

 

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Set side by side, the two editions show how little the formula has moved and how much the context has. The structure is identical: one beacon, one hooded top, one crew neck, a Japan-first launch, a global rollout to follow. The base hardware has stepped up a generation, from the S to the S2 with its new display and slimmer body. The color has swung from a signal orange, the classic hue of rescue equipment, to a colder glacier blue. And the Japanese price has risen by ¥24,200, from ¥63,800 to ¥88,000.

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Mammut’s own story starts with rope. The company was founded in 1862 in Dintikon, Switzerland, by Kaspar Tanner, and grew from agricultural rope making into a full mountain sports supplier covering apparel, footwear, packs, climbing hardware and avalanche safety. It is currently in the middle of moving its headquarters from Seon back to Lenzburg, where it was based from 1878 to 1984, with the relocation scheduled to finish by the end of 2026.

Avalanche safety has become one of the brand’s clearest identities. Mammut dates its transceiver line to 1968, and its launch release for the S2 carried the title “Avalanche Dog 2.0,” a nod to the rescue dogs that the Barryvox name has long evoked. Mammut Japan’s release describes the Barryvox as holding an overwhelming share of the global avalanche beacon market. That is Mammut’s own claim, and it has not published figures alongside it.

Japan is also where Mammut’s retail presence runs deepest outside Europe. The company lists 18 directly operated stores across Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka and Fukuoka, plus roughly 700 retail accounts nationwide, which explains why a collaboration with a Tokyo designer launches there first and why the pre-sale is staged as a flagship event rather than a quiet online drop.

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Fujiwara, born in Ise in Mie Prefecture and long credited as a founding figure of Ura-Harajuku street culture, has run Fragment since 2003 as a design project rather than a conventional brand. Its method is well established: take someone else’s product, leave most of it alone, and mark it with color, a double-bolt logo and a small number of deliberate changes. Recent years have seen that approach applied to sneakers with Nike and Jordan Brand, to eyewear with Oakley, to outerwear with Moncler and to bags with RAMIDUS, and this year’s calendar already includes the Union x Fragment x Air Jordan 1 in February.

The Barryvox sits slightly apart from that list. Most Fragment collaborations are fashion objects that happen to be functional; this one is a safety instrument whose function is not negotiable. The limits of the brief line up neatly with how Fujiwara tends to work anyway. The S2’s firmware, antennas and search guidance remain Mammut’s responsibility, while Fragment’s contribution stays at the surface: a body color, a shared logo, a few seconds of animation on power-up.

Mammut has also been widening its collaboration roster in recent seasons, from Nigel Cabourn in October 2025 to this autumn’s eYe JUNYA WATANABE MAN collection. Fragment remains the only partner it has invited to redesign a Barryvox, and for the second time the work has come out of Japan first. The global rel date for the Barryvox S2 FRGMT Edition has not yet been set.