Men's Stlye: How to look drop-sled gorgeous

In the old days, when the winter package holiday was in its infancy, getting kitted out for the slopes was easy. Knitwear was crucial and a trip to the local department store would provide all manner of thermal long johns, colourful polo necks and chunky woollen socks. Brand names didn't matter; the only rule was to pile it all on at once and wear it with a neon-splattered, padded jumpsuit with elasticated waist. It may have all been a little bulky but at least you'd be warm.

For years, the now defunct C&A seemed to be the sole supplier of the nation's ski-wear. Perhaps it was something to do with the high altitudes, but style was a concept that seemed to bypass ski-wear altogether. Still, no one seemed to really care. It was fine to pad around in thick, quilted salopettes; this was functional clothing.

"It always amazed me how you could travel to some of the most spectacular scenery in the world only to find that everyone there suddenly dressed like a liquorice allsort," says Paula Reed, the fashion director of the forthcoming UK edition of In Style magazine. "The whole thing was a style outrage - the jumpsuits, the Gary Numan- style asymmetric colour blocks, all that neon... horrible. Maybe it was something to do with the feeling of liberation that comes with hurling yourself down a mountain, but those people would never have dressed like that at home."

In the early 1990s, Ralph Lauren brought out a range of jackets and trousers that were not only waterproof and lightweight but actually looked good and came in a range of subtle, wearable colours. "It was part of the whole fashion- as-lifestyle thing," says the editor of i-D magazine, Avril Mair. "Where there's no area of your life that a label can't design for. The kind of people who wear designer clothes generally don't want to have to wear orange nylon when they go skiing, they want labels. Nowadays, you can go skiing relatively cheaply, it isn't an elite activity any more. There has to be some way of differentiating yourself on the slopes from the masses, who can wear all the cheap, nasty clothes they want."

The momentum from the designer labels was quick to build up. In the winter of 1998, Prada and Versace both introduced their Sports lines. This was to become a defining moment not only in the winter- sports arena but in fashion as a whole. This was sports gear that not only changed by the season and reflected catwalk trends but incorporated performance technology as well. This season, for example, Versace Sport's slim-fit, high-collared thermo wear has proved to be one of the big sellers. It's available in khaki, cream and black, and they've even managed to make the all-in-one ski suit look good. If that wasn't enough, the skier's Versace waistcoat has been flying out of the shops.

Chanel has also produced its own ski- wear line this season. If the massive advertising campaign passed you by, their unisex trousers, parkas, goggles, helmets and snow boots come in white, silver and pale grey - each item prominently embossed with the double- C logo. This wasn't introduced as a separate sports range, nor as a quick money-spinning accessories line. Instead it was unveiled on the Paris catwalk as part of Chanel's main clothing line, demonstrating just how far ski-wear has come in less than a decade.

Dolce and Gabbana has just dipped its toes in with a new range of coloured ski goggles, while Benetton took it a stage further with the recent launch of the Nordica line - a range of skis in contemporary colours with boots to match. "Now, you don't have to have skis that look like someone's just puked all over them," says Paula Reed.

The sport has become sufficiently design-conscious for Wallpaper* magazine's bi-annual, high-end sports supplement "Line" to feature pages and pages of the latest ski-wear worn off-piste. You didn't even need to be anywhere near a mountain to wear it - witness recent sightings of Eminem and David Beckham in their white designer Alfa Industries' ski jackets.

But this sudden growth in fashionable ski-wear possibly owes as much to snowboarding as to any celebrity or designer endorsement. When snowboarding came into the mainstream, just over a decade ago, the boarders' look was completely different to that of the skiers. Theirs wasn't bulked-up casual wear, but an adaptation of their normal street wear - outsize fleeces, baggy trousers and waterproof jackets. "Beside regular skiers, the snowboarders looked so much cooler," says Paula. "They didn't suddenly turn into a freak show just because they were on a snow-covered mountain. Skiers suddenly started taking notice, the snowboarding thing turned everything around."

Nowadays, the cross-over between snowboard and ski-wear is complete. The concern isn't whether it's done on one board or or two, but how to push riding conditions to their most extreme, to go higher up and further off-piste. These people would laugh at the idea of negotiating a mountainside trussed up in Prada, and the technology they demand has defined the direction in which ski-wear is moving.


Source: Independent, The (London), Jan 15, 2001 by Lena Corner