So what is ISPO ? ISPO is the international trade fair for all things outdoors in the winter time- i.e. predominantly skiing and snowboarding. It is held every year, over 4 days, at the old Munich airport which has been turned into massive exhibition halls. Just imagine 16 football pitch size halls all filled with the latest ski and snowboarding equipment. That’s 185,000m2 of every brand you can imagine- just slightly larger than your average seasonaire apartment in Val…!
The first impression you get when you walk in is the sheer enormity of the place. You better be good at reading maps because if you make an error it might take a good 15-20mins to walk to the right stand. It is typical German organization and everything works as it should, no queues, no hassles- just Mercedes, beer and sausages. However, in saying that there was a public transport strike during one day of the show but it didn’t really disrupt anything- let’s face it, nobody can do a strike like the French.
So what is new for next year? Unfortunately there haven’t been any mind blowing revolutions since the invention of parabolic skis (that’s a while ago now) but if you search hard enough you can find small advancements. There is now real evidence that some of the big guns are starting to take the environmental problems into consideration. First and foremost is Rossignol, who have designed a ladies ski that is at least 80% recyclable. Natural, sustainable materials appear the buzz words for next years collections.
And what about this financial crisis that everyone talks about? It seems that the crisis has seen a lot of ski clothing manufacturers play it relatively safe. I am not sure if there is a designers meeting to decide which colour is going to be ‘in’ next year- but they got it wrong. Apart from loads of black and white there seemed to be an unusually high concentration of pastel aqua garments. Be warned!
On the other hand, in the snowboarding market, fluoro is the new black. It has been for a little while, really. There must be a competition as to who can create the most ridiculous combination. Enough said really- they all win.
The crisis has affected the ski designs as well. Pretty much all of the brands, who in the past had great designs have made a mess of it- and vice versa. There are the occasional exceptions such as Scott and Movement who seem to have pretty solid collections each year. The big surprise was Atomic- normally a great ski but a very German design- still a great ski but they have got a new designer by the looks of it.
The final thing is that prices are set to rise next year. All this eco-friendly stuff is making it much more expensive. So make sure you get yourself a bargain this season, sales start soon. Based on some of the things I saw you may be better off.
