Clothing should be light, smooth, warm, loose and, when buttoned up, it should leave no gaps.  It is better to wear several thin, warm garments than one thick one, for the simple reason that going uphill one wants to peel to the minimum; sitting on top of a mountain or ridge in a wind, one wants to pile on everything one possesses, and going downhill one wants a medium amount, all of which will button up so that the snow cannot penetrate inside.  Ordinary country clothes will usually suffice for the first season, especially if they are of smooth material which will shake off the snow.

Men usually wear smooth wool or cotton gaberdene coats, and trousers, and a peaked “Guide’s” cap.  Their trousers either tuck inside the uppers of their boots and should be sufficiently long to do so without pulling out in a strained turn or fall, or they may be buttoned round outside the boots or folded and tied on with Norwegian puttees or swanks.  Breeches and stockings may be worn, but long puttees should be avoided as they constrict the muscles and stop the circulation, thus tending to frost-bite, which is a serious danger at high altitudes.

Sweaters, unless worn under a coat when practising or running downhill, are quite unsuitable as the snow gets into the stitches and then melts, and the sweater becomes a sponge and often stretches till it is more like a woman’s coat-frock than anything it was before!  A Ski-ing suit should be well provided with pockets, all of which should have flaps to button over and keep the snow out.  Also to keep the contents in.  Money and other things carried loose are apt to fall out in a downhill fall.  Once this winter, when getting up from a fall, I saw what looked like a useful leather boot-lace lying in the snow.  I picked it up and found it was the bootlace attached to two stop-watches, which I had been using for a test.  As one cannot tie one’s money up with a boot-lace, it is wise to carry it safely, and cheat the goatherds, who may surely make a profitable living out of the various treasures lost by Ski-ers, which appear on the slopes after the snow melts.

Women need very much the same sort of clothing as men.  Either trousers or breeches, whichever they prefer.  These should be made to measure in order to fit well and be worn with braces to pull them up.  Thick boys’ stockings should be worn to pull up over the breeches.  If women would only realize how sloppy their nether garments sometimes look and how really horrid breeches look hanging loose over silk stockings indoors, they would surely be more careful to study and copy a man’s neat legs before they venture into man’s apparel.

One sometimes sees women’s coats made with innumerable fancy buttons or tabs as decoration.  These only add to the weight which no one would want to carry, and also look out of place.  So does fur trimming.  Ski-ing clothes cannot be too simple.  Elaboration is easily obtained by bright-coloured gloves, scarves or swanks.