Skiing: You can never be too warm or too thin

This year you will be bright, luminous bright. You'll be thin (but warm) and in two pieces. All that grungy snowboarding stuff has gone from the slopes. Yes, the Eighties look is back .

The well-dressed poser on the piste will be readily picked out in bright blue, astringent lemon, startling red. Put away that one- piece you were so proud of the year before last (and bought for so much); this season your bottom half will be cosily ensconced in salopettes. And, no, not those tight jobs with the go-faster stripes. Sorry, Jean-Claude Killy gave up skiing years ago.Thanks to the glories of Gore-Tex and the efficiency of Entrant G11, you no longer need bulky ski-gear to keep warm. The clothes are of thin material, and by some miracle of science - it's to do with a solar panel converting the light into heat - let your skin breathe when it is hot and keep you warm on a chairlift in nippy January gales. There is no easy way to ski on the cheap, so you may as well spend as much as you can so that you not only look the part, but stay comfortable as you whiz along. Let's face it, most of the action is done in the bar before and after the skiing itself, so it is almost as important to look good as it is to ski good. So here's our quick guide to bella figura on the slopes.

Genevieve Holledge

Above and above right: Tokka Tribe from Luhta. Jacket: pounds 150.

Trousers: pounds 99.

Main Luhta stockist: 0181 387 4050

Most of the gear shown can be bought at Snow and Rock, Ellis Brigham and Blacks

Essential

extras: watchfrom Gul (left): the Viper pounds 49.95. Groovy glasses: Oakley Strait Jacket (below left): pounds 86.

Above: Unisex Degre 7, Gore-tex 3-in-1 parka with lots of zips, an adjustable hood, useful bits of velcro and, crucially, a hidden radio pocket, pounds 299

Above: woman's jacket from SOS, pounds 249 in orange, white and red. Pants, very waterproof thanks to the miraculous Entrant G11, pounds 209