The Slim Look: Before Bogner’s stretch pants, streamlined skiwear was already in vogue.

The sleek modern skiwear look, it’s typically thought, originated suddenly in 1952 with the Bavarian designer Maria Bogner’s use of Helanca-modified nylon and wool blend to create the first durable stretch pant. (See “50th Anniversary of Stretch Pants,” September 2002, Skiing Heritage.) But the body-hugging ski look was arguably more of an evolution than a revolution, as the pictures accompanying this article show. Bogner’s revolution had as much to do with wildly varied colors replacing blacks and greys. 

Even before World War II—a period associated in North American minds with skiers wearing wool sweaters and cloth jackets, and baggy trousers with socks pulled over the bottoms—a slim aerodynamic look was underway...