FASHION : Coming Undone

It didn’t matter to longtime friends Brian Rapoza and Charlie Riggi that their navy and white down-filled jackets weren’t the most fashionable on the ski slopes at Snow Summit recently.

And it didn’t matter that the soiled jackets lacked designer labels and weather-proof fabric protection. They had one very important thing going for them.

“The price was right--$18,” said Riggi.

The pair found their bargains two years ago at a discount sporting goods store in Encinitas. On the same shopping trip, Rapoza’s wife, Diane, found her $189 jacket on sale for $34.

“I think it’s a good one. It’s by Gore-tex,” Rapoza said, mistaking the high-tech fabric name for the designer name.

California skiers once swooshed down the slopes in neon-colored nylon suits, spending as much as $2,000 for outfits by Bogner, Obermeyer and Descente. But the most important thing to skiers this season isn’t who made their outfits but how much they cost.

Miriam Bohbot, for instance, paid less than $100 each at JC Penney for new hunter-green ski outfits for her and her daughter Shani. Asked who designed the matching ensembles, she pulled out the label and shouted: “China.”

“Times are tough and it takes a few bucks to go skiing these days,” notes Mark Richards, co-owner of Val’s Surf & Sport shop in North Hollywood. Sales have not been as strong as one might expect given the snow levels in local mountains.

Skiers now forgo complete suits, Richards said, instead opting “to do more layering and piecing with items in his own wardrobe.”

Indeed, a recent survey of the slopes turned up Pendletons worn over turtlenecks paired with baggy sweat pants, military fatigues rather than spandex ski pants, and crazy striped knit caps--examples of the growing influence of haphazardly dressed snowboarders on ski apparel.

One snowboarder had an imitation moose head on his head. Another sported blue jeans and a shearling coat, topped off with a scarecrow’s cap he found last year in Austria.

Skiers really want clothes that can double as streetwear after the snow has melted, Richards said.

“Why buy a parka for a half-dozen days of skiing and another for when it’s raining in the Valley?”