As I have said before, I consider fashion to be a trick played by good looking people on the ugly. Hordes of fat, frizzy-haired wannabees spend a fortune each year in high street stores desperately trying to emulate the taller, musclier, more cheekboned special people. All they end up doing is wearing dumb shit that makes them look uglier, whilst the hotties strut around looking incredible, despite wearing bin bags.

In snowboarding terms, the trick is being played by the elite shredders on the tindy-grabbing masses, and I think this year we reached peak “emperor’s new clothes” as sideways snow steez went full douchebag.

If you scan back through time, there have been a number of questionable fashions in snowboarding. The early pioneers in neon looked pretty dumb, the extremities of grungy bagginess in the mid-nineties were beyond ridiculous, and the pattern / pattern combos that puked onto the scene in the noughties were a low point.

But the difference between ill-informed fashions of the past, and those of today, is that snowboarders were at least trying to look cool. What has amazed me over the last couple of years, is that snowboarders have lustily embraced fashions which actively make them look more like kooks and beginners.

It all started with mitts…