A Fashion Fantasy for Those Who Can Afford It
In Aspen Moncler, a luxury brand, put together a winter spectacle for celebrities and “Very Important Clients.” At the T-Lazy-7 Ranch, a dude ranch near Aspen, Colorado, the band Easy Tiger performed a Willie Nelson cover. Orlando Bloom said, or shouted, “I’m an actor, so I like to dress up.” In typical Western garb, he was decked out in a bulky pullover and roomy ski pants.
A tiny gold hoop decorated his left ear. The outfit, with the exception of the earring, was in keeping with the Butch Cassidy theme of the most recent Moncler fashion show, an Italian ski-wear brand. Mr. Bloom was part of a passel of rentable celebrities (or, to use the preferred euphemism, “friends of the brand”) who had jetted in for a spectacle of conspicuous consumption on the last weekend of January.
Adrien Brody, who has won two Academy Awards, Jennie Kim from Blackpink, Aubrey Plaza, Odell Beckham Jr., Vincent Cassel, and Maria Sharapova were among the other guests. Before the guests arrived, Moncler’s billionaire CEO Remo Ruffini stated, “Everyone says experience is more important than possessions.” He was referring to the Instagrammable “experiences” that have mostly replaced traditional runway shows as luxury product manufacturers’ marketing vehicles. Mr. says, “Brand perception is everything.”
What Ruffini said It was hard to argue with a man who bought Moncler, which had been struggling, in 2003 and made it into a publicly traded giant that made $3.6 billion in 2024, the most recent year for which figures are available. He mostly did this by making fashionable mountain gear that works. “The most interesting approach, to me, was the clothes from the ’50s and ’60s,” he said.
Even though the clothes were cool, that wasn’t really the point. Aspen, like certain other havens of the ultrawealthy, is in some sense an imaginary location. This once-mining center and former hippie outpost has become such an effective symbol of high-end chic that luxury brands have eaten up most of downtown, which is unlike Vail or Alta.
Taz Akkad of Tesoro Aspen, a 40-year-old family-owned store on East Hyman Avenue that sells fossils and rare minerals, stated, “Small retail can’t compete anymore.” The rock shop is just a few steps away from Moncler’s brand-new 2,500-square-foot Aspen boutique. As the luxury crowd streamed into town, Tesoro Aspen was offering steep discounts on amethysts and megalodon teeth as part of a going-out-of-business sale.
“No small business can survive in this climate,’’ Mr. Akkad said, referring to a nearby vacant storefront with a $65,000 monthly rent listing. Richard Edwards, the director of the Baldwin Gallery on South Galena Street, noted that the local vibe was the original draw. He stated, “There used to be this whole thing where luxury brands opened in Aspen only because they wanted the name to be associated with them.” “Those who get it right run successful businesses.” He reeled off a litany of brands that have taken up residence here — Gucci, Hermès, Louis Vuitton and so on.
Speaking of the Moncler gathering, Mr. “Virtually nobody I know, even very rich people, were invited,” Edwards stated. An estimated 80 billionaires own property in Pitkin County, which encompasses Aspen, a town with its own yacht store, though it lies 750 miles from the nearest ocean. Local takeout options include the Bear Den’s Bison Bolognese for $39, Betula’s stuffed chicken breast for $48, and Angelo’s veal cutlet for $97.
If the membership at the Aspen Mountain Club were not already full, there would be a $275,000 initiation fee. Moncler treated its invitees from the V.I.P. and V.I.C. (Very Important Client) lists to lunches at Sant Ambroeus and Casa Tua. There were also snowshoe and ski outings, not to mention reviving gulps of air at the St. Regis oxygen bar and dinner at the Caribou Club with dry-aged cod and charred baby beet salad.
Those who glided down the trails could take in views of estates owned by people like Laurene Powell Jobs, whose $105 million house was near the Roaring Fork River. The Moncler weekend came to a close on a clear night when a fleet of 160 sport utility vehicles took the guests to a check-in location, where each was given a wool knit hat, gloves, and a chocolate-brown puffer cape. From there, they boarded one of the 170 snowmobiles hired for the occasion to take them along zigzagging trails to a snowy landscape called the Meadow.
Celebrities and VIPs sat on cashmere blankets and warmed cushions on tiers of bleachers after disembarking. They gazed out on sculpted snow moguls backed by a grove of illuminated aspens. Before the show started, bartenders served chai tea, sake, and tequila.
The show’s theatrics and branding expertise were more impressive than the clothes on display, and that was the main point. It was easy to forget that the temperature was 15 degrees and that the real world lay somewhere over the mountain because of the army of models in white puffer dresses emerging from the trees and the laser show that lit up the sky in beams that evoked rapture.
