The History of the One-Piece Ski Suit & a nod to Emilio Pucci...

We owe our brand to the late great Emilio Pucci, well sort of. Pucci is the man credited with designing the very first one-piece ski suit back in the late 1940s. He did some pretty significant things before he turned to fashion, all of which paved the way for him to create the original one-piece snow suit. Over 70 years later and in turn he’s inspired us to create a brand that set out to bring his original vision back to life and to the forefront of fashion on the slopes. We hope we’re doing you proud Emilio.

At the age of 17, Pucci was part of the Italian team who travelled to Lake Placid, New York in 1932 for the Winter Olympic Games. At this point I’d love to be able to say he went on to win Gold in a blaze of glory, but unfortunately Pucci didn’t even compete at the Games. After spells at the University of Milan and the University of Georgia, Emilio ended up at Reed College in Oregon, the same school attended by a certain Steve Jobs, after being given a full scholarship in return for developing a college ski team…

After earning an MA from Reed College in 1937, Emilio Pucci joined the Italian Air Force where he served as a torpedo bomber pilot during World War II. Captain Pucci by the time he left and decorated for valour, he left the Air Force to pursue his fashion career.

The very first clothes designed by Pucci were for the Reed College ski team, the same team he had helped develop back in 1935. In 1947 his work began to gain recognition when in Zermatt, Switzerland - skiwear he had designed for a female friend was photographed by Toni Frissell, a photographer working for Harper’s Bazaar. Frissell's editor asked Pucci to design skiwear for a story on European Winter Fashion, which ran in the 1948 Winter Issue of the Bazaar…and the one-piece ski suit was born.

The fashion label Emilio Pucci founded in 1947 is still going strong, and so is the legacy he began when he created the very first one-piece ski suit.

Cheers Emilio.