What To Wear Skiing This Winter

It's cold, arctic cold but you're starting to sweat as you climb higher. You have your lightweight touring skis strapped onto your avy backpack, an icepick in your thermo-gloved hand, your 850 fillpower super-insulating down jacket is fully zipped with the hood up protecting you from the freezing wind - and your Garmin watch is clocking the altitude as well as your increasing heartrate to record on Strava.

Is this how you see yourself on a typical day out in the mountains? Then there is some serious ski and snowboard gear around for winter 2025 that will cater for your every gnar need.

This high performance gear is not designed for a nice sunny day on the mountain restaurant terrace, to appeal to the piste cruisers. But if you are a piste cruiser, there's plenty of really nice skiwear with high fashion rather than high altitude style cred. Scroll down for what to wear in resort, this winter.

But as the backcountry brand, Blackyak says, 'we don't do nice because neither do the mountains'.

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?

When it comes to extreme skiing gear, you're spoilt for choice. Indeed, there are so many hardy mountain brands with great technical and performance-orientated ski and snowboard wear that the main question is how do you choose?

Well, if you want to find the best performance gear out there, read the label for technical qualities (also for green credentials). Style-wise, however, it's a darn sight harder to select one brand over another as they all have well-designed but quite similar looking ski and snowboard wear, this winter 2024 - 2025.

Even more alarming than an icy couloir, is the fact that the highstreet is also getting in on the high mountain act, embracing extreme outdoor style with the fast-growing trend, gorpcore. Whereas once wearing your hardcore mountain puffer jacket in town would give you skier-cred now you just get lost in a crowd of gorpcore black down jackets with highstreet labels.

So give yourself a pat on the goose-down filled back if you can tell which is the high mountain and which is the highstreet black puffer, above, and chose the one on the right costing £450 as from the pucker ski brand, Arc'teryx, the left £29.99 jacket being from New Look (yep, the zip is the give away).

You'll definitely notice the difference, of course, when you're on a ridge in minus 10 - or even on a chairlift in plus 10. This is when you're going to appreciate the fact that you paid £420 more for the Arc'teryx jacket with its 750 fill-power grey goose down, the Down Composite Mapping™ Coreloft™ synthetic insulation strategically placed in areas prone to moisture and the light, durable Arato™ 30 nylon shell with its DWR treatment for water repellency.

NOT A STREETWEAR BRAND

For a top performance mountain brand, the prospect of highstreet endorsement is like a massive cornice below the ridge, one wrong step and the brand's cred comes tumbling down.

Following its highstreet rise to cool vibe acclaim featuring in rap music videos in the 90s, now trending with celebs and the TikTok generation, it has taken the North Face a long time to re-establish itself as, also, still credible on top of the mountain.

This is why the Swiss  outdoor mountain label, Mammut, launched their major campaign, this winter, with 3D projection ads on the sides of London buildings, see below, adamantly proclaiming itself 'Not A Streetwear Brand'.

LAYERING SYSTEMS

'Designed and developed together with glaciologists and researchers from The Greenland Project to provide extreme warmth even in the harshest conditions'. So rather than make statements about styling, today's extreme mountain brands are emphasising their performance pedigree, as described by Helly Hansen in the spec for their new Arctic Patrol Down Parka.. 

They have, also, studied layering systems in great detail for all weather conditions to ensure you can sweat but stay dry, cool down but keep warm, be super-protected but able to move freely. 

Traditionally skiers might buy a jacket here, a base layer there, thus throwing a brand's carefully crafted layering system completely out of whack. But if you buy it all from one label, not only will you get the benefit of the sweat-wicking, heat-insulating, thermal body-mapping system carefully created through the different layers but you'll also have them all properly colour coordinated, too. 

Check out the art of layering from SCOTT.

HIGH MOUNTAIN BRANDS: Patagonia, Noronna, Haglofs, Dynafit, Mammut, Black Diamond, Elevenate, Ortovox, Arc'teryx, Scott, Mountain Hardwear, Jottnar, Rab, Stellar, Blackyak, Montec, The North Face (Summit Series), Simond by Decathlon.

THE INSTAGLAM CLAN

However, if you think a couloir is a cool French cocktail, if the closest you get to ice is in an Aperol Spritz glass and you've never heard of Strava, then there are high-end designer ski brands dedicated to making you look as stylish as possible on the slopes and Instagram.

Not since baggy snowboarding gear in the 80s kicked the skinny arses of bodyfit ski outfits of the 70s has mountain wear style been so polarised. The gulf between gnar and glossy tribes is now as wide as Chasm-1 of the Antarctic ice shelf.

So while marketeers of the hardiest mountain brands are sending pro skiers climbing up vertiginous summits to film them descending steep couloirs in minus 30 white-outs to enforce the performance properties of their skiwear, the PR people for the glamorous designer labels are throwing chic press parties in hip-vibing city venues where models in sleek ski pants reveal the hip-slimming virtues of Lycra.

If you watched Emily in Paris on the slopes of Megève, and thought, wow, great outfit (from Goldbergh btw) rather than where the hell is her helmet, then style definitely takes precedence over safety and performance in your ski wardrobe.

After all, what is the point of having sleek hair extensions if you crush them under a sweaty helmet? Indeed, as a fashionskista, you might actually agree with a Vogue fashion journalist who once announced that the quick answer to ski chic is 'don't ski', declaring, 'the outfits are puffy, the cold plays havoc with your skin - never mind the chaos of your hair'.

But glossy ski brands, like Goldbergh (image above) and the latest newcomers to the mountain vibe including Sweaty Betty and Julien Macdonald's collab with Dare 2b (image below) are, however, the definitive answer to ski chic. 

This winter, 2025, all puffy jackets and gilets are shiny and plumped. It's look-at-me sculptured glamour with emphasised shoulders, cinched waist all-in-ones and skinny ski pants, heavy on the chic ski designer logos. No need for anyone to ask what label you're wearing (see My Sunday Ski, below).

Sweaters are the only chunky element, featuring traditional alpine designs meant for cosy chocolat chauds with marshmallows roasted over the firepit on the chalet terrace. A nod to nostalgia never hurts when it comes to high end skiwear.

Be prepared to pay a month's gas bill on designer ski base layers but, at least, back home wearing them indoors will greatly reduce the cost of heating.

HIGH FASHION BRANDS: Goldbergh, Bogner, Moncler, MGG, Sweaty Betty, My Sunday Ski, Julien Macdonald/Dare 2b, Alps & Meters, Spyder, Napapijri, M Miller, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel, Toni Sailer, Poivre Blanc.

PISTE, PARK AND PARTY VIBES

And, OK, there are other skiers and snowboarders up there on the mountain who don't fit into either of these polarised categories. We're talking specifically about under 35s who will mostly leave the summit-bagging and champagne bar posturing to the boomers while they have their own style agenda going on in resort whether for piste, park - or party.

What they wear combines style and function with a twist of individuality, whether hitting a tabletop in the park or dancing on the tables at après. This ski and snowboard wear is designed to standout in the park crowd but in a cool TikTok vibing way - and never tight-fitting in a split pants jibbing way.

So, this winter, easy-fit ski or snowboard pants are worn with a slouchy hoodie and/or a roomy smock jacket, depending on the weather. The standout statement pattern is restyled smudgy-coloured camo that, ironically, is anything but camouflaging against the white backdrop of snow (camo smock jacket, above, from RevolutionRace).

Beanies are still worn under helmets but, now, look out for them over the top. Heads up, the Anti Ordinary A2 beanie helmet (above) is likely to take over this market before the end of the decade.

Meanwhile, for Millennials and Gen Zees, goggles are always afixed to face whether in snow, sun, après bar, whatever.

HIGH ACTION BRANDS: Dope, Picture, Armada, RevolutionRace, Oakley, 686. Volcom, Planks, DC, Anti Ordinary, Burton, ColourWear, Superdry, Horsefeathers.

BANGING THE ECO DRUM

Whereas five years ago we'd be highlighting the mountain brands that have eco-cred, today it's all of them. Not surprisingly, these save-the-planet days, every outdoor clothing manufacturers has to go big on green credibility via chemical-free proofing and using recycled materials - or go bust. Transparency is the name of the eco-game as in being open as to how they are not contributing to the pollution of the great outdoors.

You have to note the irony, though, that while banging the eco drum they're sounding the fanfare for new ranges every winter to add to the waste clothing mountain.

A high five footnote to La Galta in Les Gets where seamstress Ingrid has launched her new eco-friendly second hand store with sewing service and upcycling workshop. Like the Patagonia Repair Portal and other brands' mending services this is a small step in terms of trends in the ski clothing industry but a great leap towards helping to reduce consumer waste on our planet.

HIGH FIVE BRANDS WITH REPAIR SERVICES: Patagonia, Snow+Rock, Berghaus, Rab, The North Face, Noronna.