When Moncler founder René Ramillon first designed a series of technical coats to protect workers in Monestier-de-Clermont from bracing temperatures, it’s unlikely he envisioned them also equipping the starriest A-list line up the Alpine region has ever seen. On Saturday, in the snow-topped, picture-perfect mountains surrounding St Moritz–the elite ski resort beloved by European royalty, fortune-making financiers, art dealers and snow polo players–the global glitterati, including Anne Hathaway, Willow Smith and Kate Moss, gathered to watch Moncler Grenoble’s first destination fashion show.
Moncler CEO and chairman Remo Ruffini fell in love with St Moritz at an early age, after visiting the ski town as a three-year-old with his mother. It’s where he learnt to ski, where he stayed at a hotel with his family below the Morteratsch Glacier and where today, he has a chalet. So while the show celebrated the elegant and technical Alpine wear that is the signature of the label, it was also something of a homecoming for Mr Ruffini himself. As night fell on the slopes–after a blue-skied day of snowshoeing, skiing and snowboarding, and a lunch of bratwurst and fondue at high altitude restaurant Paradiso–the label shuttled 150 guests to a picturesque pine tree-lined mountain top.
A dress code is rarely stipulated at a fashion show (largely due to the intrinsically fashionable nature of the guests) but one dressing element was required: that all members of the audience, A-list or otherwise, wear the quilted white cape that was left as a gift in their hotel rooms. Dressed in matching pearlescent outerwear–like a crowd of hooded chionophiles–the audience made its way up hill to a frosty landscape illuminated with spectral red light, where they were handed a set of headphones, a warming tea, mulled wine or hot sake, then ushered to heated seats that dotted the hillside in cosy clusters. Snuggled on the front row? This Vogue editor braved the icy paths (and a possible bumslide down the hill) to catch a glimpse of a cape-clad Anne Hathaway, Kate Moss, Willlow Smith, JR and Micheal Ward.
Moncler is renowned for its immersive show experiences. The high production Moncler Grenoble fashion shows the brand staged at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York in the mid 2010s were precursors to the monumentally theatrical and industry-disrupting Moncler Genius spectacles it has staged since 2018. Its last Moncler Genius extravaganza, held at London’s Kensington Olympia during London Fashion Week in February 2023, saw Rick Owens stage a mini rave, acrobats twirl from the sky around Mercedes Benz G Wagons, and Alicia Keys duet with Cleo Sol and Little Simz before an audience of 10,000 people.
True to form, as the show began last night, the St. Moritz mountaintop and its snow-sprinkled pine trees were bathed in a flickering light show, and an operatic soundtrack blared from guests’ headsets. As the show began, models snaked down a snowy catwalk, clutching skis and snowboards and sporting yeti boots, salopettes and puffer jackets. The looks were fit not only for elegant après ski, but also the sports legends watching from the front row, including freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy and Olympic Alpine ski racer Lindsey Vonn. After all, in 1968, Moncler became the official supplier of the French downskill ski team for the Winter Olympics held in Grenoble.
The model line-up was Olympic level, too: Irina Shayk, Emily Ratajkowski, Mariacarla Boscono, Joan Smalls, Candice Swanepoel, Mona Tougaard and Vittoria Ceretti all walked.
Forget après ski, Moncler’s show afterparty was the definition of après chic, as guests descended from the mountains to St Moritz’s ultra-exclusive venue Dracula, the Bram Stoker-celebrating, coffin-lined private members’ club founded in 1974 by Gunter Sachs, where champagne flows far more freely than fondue. Guests danced to a disco playlist, tucked into potato soup with black truffle and caviar, and a certain Willow Smith took to the piano. What else took place after midnight struck? That’s a secret for Dracula’s guests, who had flying bat stickers placed over their phone cameras as they entered the club.