North Face is de rigeur for high school kids around here, thank goodness it is actually high quality stuff that will keep you warm and dry.
The ski shop at our home mountain is packed full of NF and my daughter's last three ski jacket/pant combos came from there, although she tore her last set of NF pants and I ended up buying her Spyder race-style zip open pants as a stopgap, and her winter coat is also NF. I don't mind paying the premium price for her, but I tend to buy cheaper small brand stuff that has a reputation for quality for myself. Couldn't tell you what brand my ski jacket is, but I have used it for 4-5 seasons and it still does the job and doesn't look ratty (couldn't say anything that good about the 2 Columbia jackets I had).
A convenience store near my last job suddenly was selling all kinds of NF stuff one winter and I figured it must be counterfeit, but I looked at a couple of the jackets very closely and they were either real or truly great fakes. It was the kind of place where cops tended to hang around and I figured it would be pretty ballsy to sell fake clothes under their noses (barring some kind of free coffee and donuts to not look in that part of the store kind of deal). I ended up buying a vest for my daughter and she loved it, great for late fall and early spring weather...the only problem was that her friends kept asking her where she had bought it because they wanted one!! I don't think I ever knew the name of that place, just had a big "CONVENIENCE" sign.