How a bet in St Moritz became a wardrobe
From a hotelier's bet in 1864 to Courchevel, Aspen and this winter's revival, here is what après-ski style really is, and how to wear it.
By jelli.world, the bag brand. Our styling advice, with sources linked in the text and jelli.world products offered for sale.
In the autumn of 1864, so the story goes, a hotelier in St Moritz made a bet with a group of English summer guests. Johannes Badrutt told them that if they came back in winter he would keep his hotel open for them, and if they didn't like it he would pay for their journey home. Swissinfo's account is careful to call it a legend, passed down through the Badrutt family. But the punchline is the same in every version. He won, and winter in the Alps became something people travelled towards rather than away from.
That bet is a good place to start, because après-ski style has always been about what you wear once the hard part is over: the clothes for the terrace, the bar, the long table and the walk back through the snow. So if you are asking what is après-ski style, the honest answer is warm, tactile clothing with a sense of occasion. Big knits, soft fur and shearling, puffers worn open, a snow boot that is as much a pleasure to look at as to stand in. It is the wardrobe of someone who has earned the evening.
The word, and the hour it names
Merriam-Webster dates the English use of "après-ski" to 1951 and defines it, plainly, as the "social activity (as at a ski lodge) after a day's skiing." The French is just "after ski". What matters is that the word names a time of day before it names a look. The clothes followed the hour.
That hour sits between two kinds of dressing. On one side is technical kit, built for speed and cold and not much else. On the other is proper evening wear, which looks faintly ridiculous at 1,800 metres. Après-ski style is the negotiation between them. It borrows the volume and warmth of the mountain and the polish of a dinner reservation, and it is at its best when you can't tell which side is winning.
How the resorts built the look
St Moritz gave the idea its origin myth. The resorts that grew up after the Second World War gave it a setting. In 1946 the council of Saint-Bon in Savoie approved a project for a new resort, and that November it was officially named Courchevel. Its architect, Laurent Chappis, imagined what the resort's own history calls a "skiable city", far from the old village model. That is worth noticing. A city in the snow needs city clothes adapted for snow, and Courchevel became one of the great stages for exactly that.
The same year, on the other side of the Atlantic, the Aspen Skiing Company was founded in a former Colorado silver-mining town. Walter Paepcke, the industrialist who worked with the skier Friedl Pfeifer and helped found the Aspen Music Festival and School, turned Aspen into a place where people came to be seen thinking as well as skiing. The result, by the 1960s, was an American version of the alpine evening: fireplaces, timber, a little more denim, the same appetite for a good sweater.
Between them, these places fixed the vocabulary. Wood and stone interiors that make colour glow. Cold air outside and an overheated room inside, which is why layers that peel off gracefully matter more than any single coat. A short walk on packed snow, which is why the boot became the most important piece of the outfit and, increasingly, the most decorative.
Why it left the mountain
For decades the look stayed largely in resort towns. Then it came down the hill. In February 2025, nss magazine noted that après-ski chic had moved well beyond the slopes, with snow boots and earmuffs turning up "including places where there is no snow at all", and Sacai reworking skiwear "with an urban twist" for its autumn/winter 2025 show in Paris.
The Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics pushed it further. Grazia's February 2026 report quoted the fashion commentator Kimberly Carney summing up the mood as "less costume, more lifestyle", and coining "après-street" for the blend of athletic ease and city polish. A month earlier, the writer Vito Modugno had argued on his Substack, Taste, that après-ski could displace gorpcore as the dominant outdoors-inflected trend. Gorpcore dressed you for a hike you might take. Après dresses you for the drink afterwards, which is a much more persuasive fantasy in January.
What après-ski style is made of
Here is how I'd break it down, and where I'd hold firm.
| Element | What it is | The editor's rule |
|---|---|---|
| The knit | Cable, Fair Isle, a fine roll-neck under something chunkier | Buy the knit for the collar. It is what shows above a coat. |
| The soft layer | Faux fur, shearling, teddy fleece | One per outfit. Two furs make a bear. |
| The shell | A cropped or long puffer, worn open indoors | Matte or gloss, never both at once. |
| The base | Ribbed leggings, straight jeans, leather trousers | Keep it narrow to balance the volume above and below. |
| The boot | Chunky sheepskin, padded nylon, lace-up snow boot | This is where the colour should go. |
That last row is the part people get wrong. The instinct is to play safe with the boot and put the colour up top in a bobble hat. Flip it. A bright sheepskin boot under a cream cable knit and an ink-navy puffer reads as considered, because it anchors the outfit at the floor where the eye finishes. A bright hat on a neutral body reads as an afterthought. Colourful sheepskin snow boots such as jelli.world's real-sheepskin Sherpa boots were made for this exact job: something that belongs in deep snow and still earns its place at the table.
Heritage or colour
Within the look there are two moods, and it helps to know which you are in. The first is heritage: oatmeal and navy, an old team sweatshirt, a camel coat, the style Grazia filed under "vintage team spirit". The second is colour, which has its own history. Emilio Pucci's first designs were ski clothes for his college team, and his skiwear came to wider attention when it was photographed by Toni Frissell for Harper's Bazaar in 1947. The idea that the mountain is where you wear your boldest colour is older than the lift pass.
You can mix the two moods, and the best outfits usually do. Keep the heritage pieces on the body and let colour arrive at the extremities: the boot, a fluffy bag in a shade that makes strangers grin, a scarf. The neutrals give the brights something to push against.
What it isn't
It isn't technical kit at dinner. Salopettes in a restaurant say you didn't have time to change, which is a different message. It isn't a novelty jumper, a novelty hat and novelty leggings at once; Carney's "less costume" is the right instinct. And it isn't uncomfortable. If you can't fold yourself onto a low sofa in front of a fire in it, it has failed the only test that matters.
Start at the floor
If the history teaches anything, it is that the evening is the point. When you're ready to choose the boot that carries it, the Sherpa boots and fluffy bags at jelli.world come in colours that look even better against snow.
Common questions
What is après-ski style in simple terms?
It is the way people dress after skiing: warm, textured and a little dressed up. Think knits, faux fur or shearling, an open puffer and a chunky snow boot, worn for drinks, dinner or a walk through the village rather than for the slopes.
Do you need to ski to wear après-ski style?
No. Most people wearing it in 2026 have never been near a lift. One mountain piece, usually a good boot or a big knit, mixed into an ordinary winter outfit is enough to carry the idea.
Is après-ski style still in for winter 2026/27?
Yes. It was one of the defining looks around the 2026 Winter Olympics and has since settled into a city-friendly version built on texture and one strong colour rather than full ski costume.
Last reviewed: 15 October 2026