Piste fashion for kids

Following on from my last post about fashion, this one is about kids. I’m not a parent, but I was a kid on the piste, and I remember my parents wanted me to look cute, but more importantly, identifiable from a distance. It’s perhaps for this reason that very few kids are ever dressed in black. I had yellow plastic pants (it was before Gore-tex existed) and a red woolly hat with a massive pompom on top. It matched my red jacket. My mum could identify me as I cried the whole way down the nursery slope, and my dad could pick up my hat from the snow after each and every fall.

Imagine if there were half a dozen kids in yellow pants, a red jacket and a red hat. My dad would have been retrieving hats all over the place, and my mum would have probably been hassling another mum about hugging a kid she thought was me. Confusing! And that’s what it’s been like this year in the French Alps. It seems that loads of parents have opted for a kids’ one-piece in red, orange and white. Although I’ve seen the same outfit in the darker colour scheme of navy blue, I guess most parents have decided that they want to see where their kids are, and so, red is better. Below is a photo I took while eating a crepe the other day. There was actually another kid in the same outfit sitting in the creperie with me, but I couldn’t get him in shot. That’s four kids in the same outfit, and more kept rolling through as I later sipped on a hot chocolate.

Kids in the same one-piece ski suit

So, what fashion advice am I offering? I’m not actually sure. I would say to parents to think twice before buying this particular outfit, but then, it’s not always a bad thing: last week in Avoriaz, I found a crying child wearing this same outfit. I asked him if he was lost in French, but he answered in another language. Luckily, one of my friends speaks Dutch and was able to find out that the kid had been separated from his mum and brother. He took him to the chairlift operator who put the word out. When a woman and another kid in the same outfit walked past a few minutes later, my friend recognised the outfit immediately and sure enough, that was the lost kid’s brother and mum. Family reunited thanks to the ski suit.

About

I'm a technical author, journalist and writer from Australia who has been living in Europe since 2000 and exploring the world from there. My passions are writing, snow sports and travel.

3 Comments on “Piste fashion for kids

  1. there seems to be an increasing trend esp. amongst saddo brits parents to force their kids to wear hi-vis vests on the pistes. Why why why… especially doesn’t help when you see 20 separate kids go past in the same dayglo tops and blue trousers. And not this isn’t the ski-school snake, it’s individual kids skiing with individual parents.

    Bring back the fartbags please…

  2. Love the pic! Gosh is there ever a break out of fisticuffs in the snow over a lost child being claimed by the wrong father?

    Perhaps someone should come up with a range of ribbons or small balloons/balls that could be pinned to the top of the child’s hat, just like people try to personalise their suitcases with a colourful strap or ribbons tied to the handle. If I couldn’t find a set of clothes that was different and easily recognisable I’d certainly think of personalisation or I’d invest in a telemetry tracking system like falconers use on their birds! ;))

  3. It makes you think that even though something is a particu;er fashion will it be esy for someone to find you when you are doing something like sking