Skiing’s funny. We all fancy ourselves to be tough outdoors people, yet within our shared sport, there’s an undeniable fascination with something that, at least stereotypically, isn’t considered hardcore: fashion.
This obsession is everywhere, from obvious places like the slopes of Aspen, Colorado, to more surprising locales—we’re thinking of the skiers at expert-oriented ski areas decked out in perfectly fitting Gore-Tex. Yes, it’s technical and designed to weather the elements, but you can’t tell me that Arc’Teryx doesn’t double as a statement piece. You didn’t just buy it because it’ll keep you warm and dry—you want to look good, too. And park rats—despite all their anti-status-quo bravado—love to play dress up. The backward goggle trend says it all.
Skiing, love it or hate it, is a fashion show. In the spirit of such, we’ve compiled a list of the hottest fashion trends of the upcoming year. Some are predictions—others are things we’ve spotted out on the slopes that might catch on further in 2025.
Photo: The North Face/Skims
1. Streetwear and Fashion Label Collaborations
This season, there have already been numerous collaborations between ski-oriented companies and fashion-forward brands. The North Face partnered with Skims, a shapewear label co-founded by Kim Kardashian (The North Face, in the past, has also worked with Gucci). Spyder teamed up alongside New York-based trendsetters Supreme to create a line of jackets, sweaters, and other goodies.
As ski brands look to find ways to stand out in 2025, we expect that more unexpected crossovers between the worlds of skiing and “actual” fashion will appear. (Mammut, notably, sought to distance itself from this trend with its “Not a Streetwear Brand” campaign.)
2. Color-Blocked Kits
Let’s talk (briefly) about Kim Kardashian again. One thing, among others, was eye-catching with the Skims collaboration between The North Face and Skims—all the outfits were single colors. Cohesive, singularly colored have shown up elsewhere. Parkin Costain has been spotted wearing head-to-toe baby blue or purple kits. Halfdays, a rising women-oriented brand, prominently features skiers and snowboarders wearing only one shade in its marketing material.
One photo, shared on Instagram, stars Halfdays co-founder Kiley McKinnon wearing (almost) baby blue everything—her white ski boots are the only part of the outfit that clashes. For fans of standing out or blending in (it’s easy to hide in the trees when you’re only wearing black), this trend is worth keeping an eye on.
Related: Skiing in the Rain: What To Wear and How To Prepare
3. Bandanas
Not just for robbing banks or LARPing as a pirate, bandanas are multi-functional bits of fabric. You can wear them on your head and your neck and, in a pinch, use them to blow your nose. They’ve appeared in the context of skiing several times now. More recently, Quinn Wolferman rocked a purple bandana on his head in this season’s ICEDOUTMONALISA. Pros of yesteryear also used to sometimes wear bandanas on their faces like cowboys out of a Western. If they were popular once, they could be popular again.
Photo: POWDER
4. Wearing Outerwear From Small or Recent Upstart Brands
Skiing’s long been dominated by the big dogs, but over the past few seasons, a surge of smaller, sometimes single-person operations have cropped up, diversifying the outerwear landscape. While many of these boutique brands cater to park skiers like Arsenic or Capeesh, backcountry fans in need of lighter, techier threads can give up-and-comer Raide Research a look.
“If you’re a backcountry skier looking for comfortable and stylish bibs that are just as happy powder freeriding on storm days as they are on big spring ski mountaineering missions, the TourTech Bib and its less-is-more design will be an excellent option for you,” wrote our gear editor, Max Ritter, of Raide’s TourTech Bib. Perhaps more so than ever, skiers can choose from a variety of compact outerwear companies that cater to a specific niche—this likely won’t change in 2025.
Photo: Ian Greenwood
5. Weird, Fun New Gizmos
Can hard goods be lumped into broader discussions about ski fashion? We think so—after all, you can’t ski without anything attached to your feet. For a little while there, it felt like ski technology had reached a point where it couldn’t evolve further. We got new materials and slightly tweaked shapes, but nothing as groundbreaking as the arrival of twin tips or touring boots that actually work.
In the past few seasons, though, established brands and start-ups have found ways to create something novel again. BOA now appears on numerous ski boots. Someone’s planning on selling a battery-powered ski. A couple of guys in Canada made a portable electric rope tow for backcountry use. You can buy a pair of shock absorbers for your skis—called ShredShox—right now. Could 2025 bring more wacky innovations that may or may not catch on? We hope so. Let’s get weird.
Photo: LINE
6. Skiers Taking Even More Interest in Snowboarding
For sub-cultural reasons beyond our understanding, snowboarding’s always functioned as skiing’s edgier, trendier cousin. Maybe it’s the more direct linkage between snowboarding and the hippest action sport of them all, skateboarding—or it has something to do with Shaun White’s hilarious, cooler-than-a-cucumber moment on CNN all those years ago. Either way, snowboarding holds a certain allure, at least among the young, freeskiing crowd.
The popularity of pow surfers has been a historical sign that some skiers like swapping out two planks for one, but with Sean Pettit now a member of Mountain Hardware’s team as a dual sport athlete and LINE making snowboards, the dissolution of the boundary between skiing and snowboarding suddenly feels a bit more mainstream.
Related: These 7 Ski Resorts Are Perfect for Large Groups and Families
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