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It was 1995 and on the slopes they were still wearing tracksuits, down jackets and trousers purchased at the sports clothing store. Until, confirming his reputation as a pioneer (for example, he was among the first to launch a home collection), Giorgio Armani presented his first collection of snow clothing. Called, simply, Neve. Last December, Armani personally climbed the peaks of St Moritz for the fashion show of his renewed collection for the winter mountains, organized in front of the historic Olympia Stadium, home of the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948. Almost thirty years have passed since 1995, a period in which fashion brands chased each other in this race to the top, driven not so much by a romantic inspiration, but by considering the strategy of bringing their logo into the fields of so-called “experiential luxury” profitable. Which, according to the latest Bain-Altagamma report, drove the global high-end market in 2023, worth around 1,500 billion euros.
In the same days of December 2022, and again in St Moritz, Pucci (brand of the LVMH group) brought its capsule created in collaboration with the historic sports brand Fusalp, with very colorful creations, as in the style of the maison, which took up the iconic motif Marble. And they recalled the passion of Marquis Emilio, founder of the brand, for skiing: not only was the designer a master of it, but he was also part of the Italian national ski team at the 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Winter Olympics. A passion that he would later bring Diana Vreeland, historic editor of Vogue, asked him to design a collection of women’s ski suits for Lord & Taylor, the oldest US department store chain.
The link between fashion and mountain sports therefore does not have such recent origins, as the Moncler case effectively demonstrates: born in 1952 in France as a clothing brand for tackling the peaks (its name itself is the abbreviation of Monestier-de-Clermont , a mountain village near Grenoble), in the 80s the famous down jackets became a symbol of the urban streetwear of the time worn by the “paninari” who could not do without them, and then evolved further after the acquisition of the company by by Remo Ruffini in 2003. In the new direction we wisely wanted to develop the two souls of the brand, therefore the more traditional one with the Grenoble collections, and the more fashionable one with numerous projects such as the innovative Genius.
But, in fact, it was above all the desire to expand in a “lifestyle” sense that made numerous brands in the sector debut in skiwear, especially in recent years. Reason that led the Net-à-porter e-boutique to launch the “skiwear” section in 2014.
The most recent case is that of Balenciaga, a Kering group brand, which on October 26 presented its first collection for the snow, consisting of suits, jackets, trousers, shoes but also a snowboard and skis. In recent weeks, the long collaboration between Stella McCartney and Adidas has also been extended to winter sports, with sustainable garments, in line with the vision of the British designer. Among the most recent entries in the snow fashion catalog there is also Eleventy, Brunello Cucinelli with garments suitable for the slopes as well as for aprés-ski in front of the fireplace; Louis Vuitton starting from 2021, the same year in which Prada signed a capsule for AspenX. However, it was 2020 when Dior launched the DiorAlps capsule, while even before that, in 2016, there was the debut of Fendi.
These are certainly not items with “democratic” prices. And the costs of spending a few days on the slopes are constantly increasing: according to Assoutenti the spending on ski passes, accommodation, restaurants and on-site services, excluding transport, for a week in Italy in the 2023/24 winter season will be between 1,500 and 1,750 euros per capita, with an average increase of 8% over 2022.