Salomon was born in the French Alps in 1947 in a small town called Annecy. Francois Salomon and his family ran a successful company making metal saw blades.
Being avid skiers, Francois saw the need to have stronger, more durable edges for his wooden skis. After modifying his saw blade machine, he created a metal edge which he installed on his skis. An innovation that is still used every where today and one all skiers and boarders now take for granted.
This passion for innovation has guided Salomon through the years and has lead the company to produce some of the most exciting and revolutionary products to hit the sporting industry.
It wasn’t much of a reach for the nascent company to migrate from ski edges to the primitive cable bindings of the era, where the brand made its first big splash with the Skade toe piece in 1955. Bindings remained the company’s principal activity until it launched its first boot, the rear-entry SX90, in 1979. In the decade that followed Salomon dominated headlines with the introduction of the SX90’s successor, the hugely successful SX91. Salomon knew that to have continued success the products needed to be designed with people in mind so the company focused in on creating innovative fit technologies like heat mouldable custom ski boot liners and shells which has propelled Salomon to become the largest ski boot manufacturer in the world.
The next logical step for Salomon was to move into Alpine ski production when in 1989 they hit the market running with their range of monocoque skis. In true Salomon style, the following years saw them bring to the market a number of innovations such as the first twin tip ski with the help of Mike Douglas and JP Auclair, the god fathers of freeskiing.
The 1990’s brought about Salomon’s commitment as a company to mountain sports with the introduction of a full range of Snowboard products but their favourite playground wasn’t limited to snow sports. Salomon entered the hiking footwear market and went on to carve their own niche with light and fast hiking and trail running shoes and apparel.
Today Salomon continues to innovate and lead the way forward with fresh product ideas and technical, innovative development where features, performance, style and quality are at the core of what they do.
