Last week, Europe broke temperature records three days running. You only need to look outside to know we’re in the sweaty thick of it. But this week we’re going way out of season: Lamborghinis on frozen lakes, champagne at 9,000 feet, slingback heels clipped into Lacroix ski bindings. Maria Bogner put Monroe in stretch ski pants in 1952. Slim Aarons spent decades photographing fur-clad countesses sledding St. Moritz. The 1980s turned it all into slapstick — Hot Dog, Better Off Dead, Ski School — and TikTok’s “Winter Bimbo” brought ushankas and miniskirts into snowy forests, a look Polyester Zine has scrutinized for flattening post-Soviet hyper-femininity into a mood board. The camp was always part of the deal.

As with anything that starts as a joke, commitment to the bit has birthed full sincerity. FW26 was drenched in fur and shearling — not as irony, but as texture, weight, drama. Searches for “glacier aesthetic” have climbed all year, driven mostly by people building mood boards from apartments with no AC. The fashion calendar always sells the weather you’re not having, this year the clash of hot and cold is a lot more pronounced.

• A century of slope-to-pavement Alpine chic
• What’s lurking behind the “Slavic Bimbo” aesthetic
• A week at the richest ski resort in the world
• The history of après-ski fashion and how mountain style evolved

Glacial DecadenceBy @sequencebycosmos

View collection