Descente
The Osaka sportswear firm that changed what ski racers wear.
The story
Descente traces back to Takeo Ishimoto's shop in Osaka, opened in 1935.1,2 Skiwear began in 1954, when Kazuyoshi Nishimura, Japan's first professional skier, came in to advise. The company's own history calls the 1957 RWSB jacket its first fully in-house product.2,3
The race suit that got a win taken away
In 1979 Descente made Canada's "Crazy Canucks" a tight one-piece downhill suit. Ken Read won at Crans-Montana wearing it. The suits were then seized, retested and ruled illegal, and the win was taken away. The Canadian Ski Museum says that one-piece construction went on to become the norm.4
Teams
Descente first signed to supply the Swiss alpine team in 1978.7 Sports Illustrated covered the striped Descente race suits at Sarajevo 1984,5 and Pirmin Zurbriggen's Calgary 1988 suit by Descente is in the Olympic Museum collection.6
Buying vintage Descente
- Many 80s and 90s pieces say "Made in Japan" on the label. There is no reliable public guide to dating Descente labels, so judge by style, fabric and care label rather than one tag.
- Team pieces (Swiss, Canadian) are the most collected. Check the team badge matches the years that team wore Descente.
- Japanese sizes run small: go by the measurements in cm.