Did you know? The origin of the puffa jacket

"the powder snow is as fine as champagne bubbles!"

It is the invention of a German installed in 1947 in Aspen in the Rocky Mountains (Colorado, USA). Klaus Obermeyer, an aeronautical engineer (he worked at Messerschmitt), now 99 years old, took part in the metamorphosis of this former mining town into a social ski resort where he likes to say that "the powder snow is as fine as champagne bubbles!"

Klaus Obermeyer

The German champion opens a ski school and aims to introduce the American high society to the joys of snow. But his first rich customers, unaccustomed to skiing, were very cold. He thinks of the down jacket that his mother had taken care to put in his luggage. He then cuts his bed linen to convert it into a quilted jacket ... A success! Immediately, 75 pieces were ordered from a Munich downy factory and sold for $ 250. Thousands more would soon follow. No patent has been filed. "It did not matter to me that my customers were not cold anymore," says the inventor.

"It did not matter to me that my customers were not cold anymore" 

Ironically, in France, we attribute the paternity of the jacket to the Moncler brand, founded in 1952 in Monestier-de-Clermont (Mon-Cler), near Grenoble, by René Ramillon and André Vincent, who embarked on equipment technical for the mountain. Two years later, their friend Lionel Terray, the famous Himalayan, develops the jacket, presented as the first jacket of this type. Moncler will later dress the France team at the Grenoble Olympics in 1968 and adopt the cock for emblem.

The 80's / doudoune Moncler

At the beginning of the 80s in France, the jacket leaves the ski tracks for the first time for the street and is a hit! It is today a fashion clothing, hot, chic and sporty.

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