A very old down jacket!

My old Moncler down jacket is more than 50 years old (52 to be exact) and this week, my daughter wore it, as she needed something warm to ward off winter’s return. The origins of that garment and its name is worth mentioning. 

Moncler is in fact the abbreviation of Monestier-de-Clermont, a mountain village near Grenoble. Here in 1952, René Ramillon and André Vincent founded the company that created the now iconic down jacket that offered then high resistance and protection against the harshest climates and was tested in a variety of mountain expeditions. 

In 1954, Moncler’s down jackets were chosen to equip the Italian expedition to K2, in which Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli summited the world’s second highest summit. 

Successful through the 1980s, the brand began to lose ground and was acquired in 2003 by the Italian Remo Ruffini who turned the jacket into a luxury garment that sells today in the US for around $1,500. 

I purchased this one when I was a ski instructor in Avoriaz in fall of 1973 for significantly less, and it’s still almost like new. Talk about quality, then!