Après-ski is French for "after ski": the part of a ski day that happens once the skiing stops. Merriam-Webster defines it as the social activity at a ski lodge after a day on the slopes and dates its first use in English to 1951. The idea is a good deal older than the word.
One word, two meanings
In France, un après-ski is also a boot: the warm, waterproof snow boot you pull on once the ski boots come off. Ask for après-ski in a French shop and you will be shown footwear. The most famous example is Italian: the Moon Boot, designed by Tecnica's Giancarlo Zanatta in the early 1970s after the Moon landing, and worn ever since by people with no intention of going near a chairlift.
St. Moritz, 1864
Winter tourism in the Alps is usually traced to a bet. The story goes that in the autumn of 1864, the hotelier Johannes Badrutt told a group of British summer guests at his hotel in St. Moritz that the Engadine winter was even better than its summer, and offered to make it worth their while if they came back and disagreed. They came, they stayed, and they got bored enough to start racing toboggans down the village streets, which is how the Cresta Run began. The accounts differ on the exact terms of the wager. What is certain is that Badrutt's Kulm was the first hotel in St. Moritz, and in 1878 it switched on the first electric light in Switzerland.
Sun Valley, 1936
The American version was built by a railway. Averell Harriman, chairman of the Union Pacific, wanted people to ride his trains west in winter, so he sent an Austrian count to find a site for a European-style resort. The count chose Ketchum, Idaho. Sun Valley Lodge opened in December 1936 with Hollywood guests on the invitation list and something the Alps did not have: the world's first chairlifts, adapted by a Union Pacific engineer from a machine for loading bananas onto ships. Ernest Hemingway arrived in 1939 and finished For Whom the Bell Tolls in suite 206.
The post-war resorts
After the war, skiing became a holiday rather than an expedition. Courchevel was created from scratch on summer pasture in 1946, planned so guests could ski from the door. Ski clothing started to be designed to be looked at: Emilio Pucci's first ski suits appeared in the late 1940s, and Maria Bogner's stretch ski trousers followed in 1952. The clothes worn in the bar mattered as much as the clothes worn on the hill.
The Austrian party
Austria gave après-ski its volume. The Krazy Kanguruh opened above St Anton in 1965 as one of the resort's first après bars; its original building came down in 2025. The MooserWirt followed in 1989 and still calls itself, with a straight face, probably the worst ski hut on the Arlberg. In the winter of 1994/95 Ischgl held its first Top of the Mountain concert, headlined by Elton John. Ski boots on tables became a tradition.
The terrace and the DJ
The modern version came from Val d'Isère. Luc Reversade took over a mountain refuge at La Daille in 1974, and from 2007 the afternoons at La Folie Douce turned into something between an alpine hut and an Ibiza club, with DJs, dancers and cabaret on the terrace. The format has since spread to several other French resorts.
What it means now
Après-ski is any of these things, depending on the resort and the hour: a vin chaud at the bottom of the last run, a long lunch that turns into an afternoon, a band in a bar you ski straight into, or dinner in a chalet with the ski boots finally off. The clothes follow the same logic. They should look like you have been skiing all day and are in no hurry to leave.