“I’m an actor, so I like to dress up,” Orlando Bloom said, or shouted, over the din as the band Easy Tiger played a Willie Nelson cover at the T-Lazy-7 Ranch, a dude ranch near Aspen, Colo.
He was wearing a bulky pullover and roomy ski pants in low-key Western style. A tiny gold hoop decorated his left ear. Minus the earring, the look was consistent with the Butch Cassidy theme of the latest fashion show from Moncler, an Italian ski-wear label.
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. Other guests included the two-time Academy Award winner Adrien Brody, Jennie Kim from Blackpink, Aubrey Plaza, Odell Beckham Jr., Vincent Cassel and Maria Sharapova.
“Everyone says experience is more important than possessions,” Remo Ruffini, the billionaire chief executive of Moncler, said shortly before the guests arrived.
He was referring to the Instagrammable “experiences” that have largely supplanted traditional runway shows as marketing vehicles for makers of luxury goods. “Brand perception is everything,” Mr. Ruffini said.
It was hard to argue with a man who acquired the struggling Moncler in 2003 and transformed it into a publicly traded behemoth that earned $3.6 billion in 2024, the most recent year for which figures are available. Mostly, he accomplished this by making functional mountain gear chic. “The most interesting approach, to me, was the clothes from the ’50s and ’60s,” he said.
Cool as they were, the clothes were not entirely the point. Aspen, like certain other havens of the ultrawealthy, is in some sense an imaginary location. In a way not true of Vail or Alta, this onetime mining center and former hippie outpost has become such an effective emblem of high-end chic that luxury brands have eaten up most of downtown.
“Small retail can’t compete anymore,” said Taz Akkad of Tesoro Aspen, a family-owned store on East Hyman Avenue that has sold fossils and rare minerals for 40 years.
The rock shop is just steps from Moncler’s first Aspen boutique and its newly opened 2,500-square-foot emporium. 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, citing a nearby vacant storefront listed for rent at $65,000 a month.
Richard Edwards, the director of the Baldwin Gallery on South Galena Street, noted that the local vibe was the original draw. “There used to be this whole thing that luxury brands open in Aspen only because they want the association with the name,” he said. “The ones who get it right do good business.”
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. Edwards said, “Virtually nobody I know, even very rich people, were invited.”
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 a $39 Bison Bolognese from the Bear Den, a $48 stuffed chicken breast from Betula and a $97 veal cutlet from Angelo’s. Membership at the Aspen Mountain Club requires a $275,000 initiation fee — or would, if the membership were not at capacity.
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 a dinner of charred baby beet salad and dry-aged cod at the Caribou Club. Those gliding down the trails could take in views of estates belonging to the likes of Laurene Powell Jobs, whose house, set near the Roaring Fork River, was reported to have cost $105 million.
The Moncler weekend culminated on a crystalline night, when a fleet of 160 sports utility vehicles ferried the guests to a check-in point, where each was outfitted with a chocolate-brown puffer cape, a wool knit hat and gloves. 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.
After disembarking, the celebrities and top clients sat on tiered bleachers equipped with warmed cushions and cashmere blankets. They gazed out on sculpted snow moguls backed by a grove of illuminated aspens. Bartenders offered tequila, sake and warm chai tea before the fashion show began.
The clothes on display could not compete with the theatrics and branding wizardry, and that, substantially, was the point. From the army of models clad in white puffer gowns emerging from the trees to the laser show lighting up the sky in beams evocative of the rapture, it was possible to forget that the temperature was 15 degrees and that somewhere over the mountain lay the real world.
Guy Trebay is a reporter for the Style section of The Times, writing about the intersections of style, culture, art and fashion.
The post In Aspen, a Fashion Fantasia for Those Who Can Afford It appeared first on New York Times.
