In 2009, Julie Slaughter (Sports Science and Geography 1997) opened The Wipeout Europe business with the creation of the first ski piste map printed on microfibre for a European ski resort. The business' collection now covers over 100 resorts in France, Italy, Austria, Spain, and Andorra.
Since 2009, The Wipeout Store has grown exponentially to become a successful online shop for gifts and goodies for snow and mountain lovers, selling a range of fun, innovative and practical gifts with a raison d’être of having multi-purpose products that are built to last.
Individuals can purchase their very own ski piste map, printed on microfibre lens cloth, for use in various resorts around Europe. The maps are updated each year to ensure they reflect the current piste map which can change drastically over time depending on several factors, including weather and the environment of the resort.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Julie branched out into producing facemasks for her local community which she sewed at home with her own sewing machine. These facemasks quickly gained traction within the skiing community, leading to their 2020 feature in The Telegraph’s '25 Best Christmas Gifts for skiers and snowboarders'.
We recently spoke to Julie about the success of her business and where she anticipates its direction in the next few years. She said:
“Our major part of the business is creating unique corporate gifts and customised goodies for clients in the luxury travel sector. We regularly supply The Lodge, Richard Branson’s beautiful chalet in Verbier in the Swiss Alps, with personalised microfibre piste maps, as gifts for their clients to use instead of paper maps.
“We were also proud to be asked by The Compagnie du Mont Blanc, lift company in Chamonix, to create a custom microfibre goggle bag with images of the Chamonix Valley, to be handed as a gift to over 8,000 season pass holders in the valley.
“In the next few years, we would like to expand the number of resorts available as a Wipeout Microfibre Piste Map. We get several new requests each year! We are also a planning to add several new products to our website and focus on brands with sustainable ethics who use recycled fabric or plastic with minimal packing.”
Full article on Loughborough University News