While upgrading of winter resorts with the opening of palatial hotels and star-rated restaurants is far from new, the trend for luxury skiwear is somewhat recent. In fact, more and more luxury fashion houses are designing special collections which are sometimes accompanied by partnerships with brands of technical equipment, providing credibility for the former while positioning the latter on a premium market. By way of example, Balmain joined up last winter with the Rossignol brand for a capsule collection in a limited edition to celebrate its Alpine history. For Pierre Balmain indeed grew up in a little village in Savoy, and also designed the Olympic team's outfits when France was selected to host the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble.

Always avant-garde, CHANEL was one of the first fashion houses to open shop in a ski resort, launching an ephemeral boutique at the foot of the slopes of Courchevel in 2010. Today, luxury fashion labels including Dior, Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Prada, spend all their winters there.

They all reinvent traditional skiwear each year with hybrid items pairing noble materials and advanced technologies, as well as après-ski attire. As witnessed by the exclusive DiorAlps line signed Maria Grazia Chiuri, which notably benefits this year from a quilted technical fabric bearing the Dior Gold Star motif, along with CHANEL's Coco Neige collections, LV Ski by Louis Vuitton, Fendi Skiwear and Prada's Linea Rossa.

Ski pants and jackets, suits, jumpsuits, technical underwear… These collections are designed to the very last detail to portray 100 % brand images. Each one also comes with a range of technical gear: safety helmets, ski masks, a pair of skis or a snowboard.

This year, Gucci enters the ring with a first collection soberly named Après-Ski, joined by Pucci which has unveiled a very colourful partnership with the Fusalp brand. Not forgetting pioneer Giorgio Armani, whose Neve collection created in 1985 has just been re-launched.

Success is such that the skiwear trend is now being taken up by more insider brands such as Zegna, Brunello Cucinelli or Off-White, which have added items pairing expertise and high performance to their winter collections.