How to look fabulous on your ski holiday (and save thousands)
Renting skiwear is the latest slopeside trend. Anna Moloney puts it to the test on her ski holiday at A Winter Garden festival
Skiing is an activity that fills me with dread, being the kind of pastime that requires qualities – athleticism, enthusiasm, generally not being a wimp – that I have never known. Yet despite these barriers, there is one thing I have always coveted enough to swallow my fears, strap those strange planks on my feet, and send myself hurtling down the mountain: the outfits.
In the fashion world, ski style seems to exist in a category all of its own. There is an unspoken permission to be bolder and brasher than you ever would be in your day-to-day style while, somehow, the need for functionality actually enhances the fun. After all, the need to be warm means layers and accessories – every fashionista’s dream – and more is definitely more on the slopes. Forget quiet luxury or clean girl aesthetics, in 2026, retro shapes, bold colours and garish all-in-ones (thank you princess Di) are still very much a la mode.
All of this to say, when I got the chance to go on a ski holiday in Obertauern for the inaugural A Winter Garden Festival, the new Alpine launch from the team behind The Garden in Croatia, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to live out my Ski Barbie dreams.
I knew the festival would naturally attract a stylish crowd. Set up by the brains behind The Garden in Croatia, which hosts some of Europe’s most renowned electronic festivals (Outlook, Dimensions, Love International), the inaugural A Winter Garden was a showcase for the creme de la creme of the Croatian party scene – and music and style go hand in hand.
True to form, on arrival, the first person I caught sight of was founder Nick Colgan, distinctive by a black beret worn jauntily on his head that the record label executives in my cab told me was a key part of Nick’s new “winter look”. His wife and co-founder Charlotte captured a similar insouciance in her style, wafting round the dancefloor in eccentric shades and incense in hand.
Plus, the resort has some style credentials of its own, having formerly played host to The Beatles in 1965 during the filming of their musical-comedy film Help!, in which, pursued by a bloodthirsty, eastern cult, the band flees to Obertauern. Amongst its snowy hills, the four fab around in wool capes and top hats while draping themselves across mountain pianos.
In other words, I needed to raise my game.
One problem: skiwear, especially style-first skiwear, is cripplingly expensive. And for someone who vows every ski trip to never go back to this sadistic sport, there was no way I was forking out over a grand for a ski suit. The high street has given affordable dupes a go; Zara, H&M and Topshop have all launched ski collections in the last 10 years, but viral Tiktok videos of girls soaked after road testing such collections have not been encouraging. As such, whenever I’ve been skiing before I’ve always ended up in drab, all-black looks, cobbled together from whatever I could borrow from friends and family, and felt utterly uninspired as a result. Which is where rental came onto my radar.
The rise of ski fashion rental
Fashion rental has been a growing trend over the last few years. Spearheaded by platforms such as Hurr and By Rotation, these online services allow users to borrow clothing that may retail for upwards of thousands of pounds for a mere fraction of the price. They are best known as a refuge for those seeking emergency dresses for blacktie events, but ski is fast becoming one of their most exciting growth categories, likely propelled by the Instagram age and the likes of society events like White Turf in St Moritz and X Games at Aspen, which have become known almost as much for their boujee streetstyle (slopestyle?) as for their winter sports.
On Hurr, ski bookings have almost quadrupled since 2022, the platform told CityAM, while By Rotation confirmed it’s one of their largest categories this time of year, with customers valuing the price difference as well as the ability to be more experimental. After all, you’re buying these outfits just for a few days, not for life, so there’s no need to factor in onerous considerations of “versatility” or “will this be in fashion next year?”
As a spokesperson for Hurr explained, “rental gives [customers] permission to go bolder – brighter colours, more playful silhouettes, and pieces that feel special for their trip. We’re seeing customers treat ski and apres-ski as a real style moment, and rental lets them do that in a way that’s both sustainable and far more fun.”
The theory sounds good, but let’s put it to the test.
Putting it to the test on my ski holiday
For my trip, I used Hurr and, in terms of convenience, it couldn’t have been smoother: I simply chose my items, selected my dates (including a recommended buffer day either side for delivery) and was good to go. I was on a time crunch so chose to order from the site’s “managed stock”, meaning items that are owned by Hurr itself rather than other users, so as to remove the unpredictability of communicating with potentially dormant users (though peer-to-peer services have other perks for those in a rush – By Rotation, for example, has just collaborated with Uber to allow delivery of items within just an hour).
From there, it was as if I was Cher in Clueless, scrolling through the site’s selection like it was the best (and most expensive) wardrobe in the world. As I was going to a festival, I wanted items that could work equally for skiing and partying, with the itinerary for A Winter Garden including lively slopeside apres sessions every afternoon along with nightly parties at the rooftop bar of the stylish Places Hotel. But above all I wanted the looks to be fun.
It’s an unspoken rule on the slopes that the better your outfit, the worse you ski, and I like to be upfront about these things. For me, if I’m going to be tumbling arseside-up down the mountain, I may as well give everyone something nice to look at. Plus, there’s a safety premium to garishness: the more ridiculous you look, the easier it is for you to be found and extracted when you inevitably fall into a ditch, and other skiers tend to give you a wider berth.
I settled on a bold black and white houndstooth matching set from A Perfect Moment, one of the platform’s (and Instagram’s) most popular ski brands. True to form, I saw at least three other women in the exact same outfit during my trip, while By Rotation founder Eshita Kabra-Davies also told me she chose to rent a ski suit from the brand for her last ski holiday.
The flared bib pants made me feel and look like ABBA on skis (good thing) while I found the jacket to be especially versatile, pairing it some days with my plain black salopettes and even wearing it in London on my way back before having to send it back. Whereas at retail price, the ski suit altogether would set you back £1,520, to rent it for eight days on Hurr (including the dry cleaning and delivery) cost just £157 – not insignificant, but definitely value for money when you run the numbers. For perspective, you would have to rent the set for nine week-long ski holidays before you got to the price where it would have been better value to just buy it. That would make you quite the keen skier, plus you’d have to rely on staying the same size, and having the same taste, for all those trips.
Of course, you don’t always have to spend big. My friend, a so-called life and style editor at this very publication in fact, forgot his gloves and chose to wear a pair of Moss Bros socks on his hands rather than be hoodwinked into a panic purchase from the astronomically-priced local ski shop, so there’s really a plethora of options.
Personally, off the slopes, I opted for a range of base layers in bold prints, and grew worryingly attached to a £400 jumper (the cream, blue and red striped number pictured), also from A Perfect Moment. With ‘SKI’ emblazoned across the chest, it’s a self-aware piece that pretty much can only be worn on a ski trip (yet another reason to rent rather than buy), and I duly wore it whenever I could, pairing it with my own diamante encrusted jeans (ski essential) for the evening, as well as forcing my boyfriend into it for a matching shoot (gotta up that cost per wear).
I realised when out there that I’d curated a bit more of a preppier ski holiday wardrobe than intended, perhaps led by Hurr’s selection which leans towards more put-together pieces. The festival regulars were notably cooler – particularly Ivana Hrvat from Croatian DJ collective Hohcajt, who fabbed around during the afternoon apres set with effortless glamour, clad in aviators and a giant caramel fur coat – but you can’t rent je ne sais quoi.
Had I upped the stakes for the intimidatingly cool Hrvat and her crew of fashion-forward party kids? I did get a few compliments from the Croats, so it was mission successful for my quest to morph into a fabulous snow influencer for the week. The worst part? Sending it all back.
A Winter Garden hopes to be back for its second edition in March 2027