According to Masataka Shiwaku of Victoria Wardrobe, a snow-wear retailer in Tokyo's Kanda Ogawa-cho district, this year "many people seem to be thinking of renewing their skiing or snowboarding wardrobes."
Up to when the bubble burst in 1991, it wasn't uncommon for people to renew their outfits every year. Then, the snow-wear market was worth 100 billion yen, now it has nosedived to just 20 billion yen.
Over at Descente, Japan's leading sporting goods manufacture, Shuichi Sano echoes Shiwaku's optimism, noting that "in November, sales were 20 percent up on the same month last year." This, he suggested, "may simply be a consumption cycle," though he offered a more tangible explanation, too. "Since carving skis came on the market several years ago, many people bought them rather than outfits."