Hestra Skiing Shop

In 1936, our grandfather Martin Magnusson founded Hestra Handsken in Småland, Sweden. The first gloves were produced for lumberjacks, where the work required durable gloves. As leather was Martin’s favourite material, he used cow and goat leather which he reinforced with rivets and extra leather strips (welts) in the seams. Martin had skied during his military service in Jämtland during the First World War. As was often the case in the rural area where he was born, he had also made his own skis out of birch, base waxed with wood tar. When working in the forest and out skiing, he wore his mother Adelina’s single-needle knitted gloves on his hands, made of wool taken from the farm’s own sheep. After being knitted, the mittens were felted with soapy water. Single-needle knitting followed by felting is now an almost forgotten technique, but it produced warm and hard-wearing gloves, although they didn’t last as long as leather gloves.

In the mid-1930s, a new sport arrived in Sweden: Slalom. Martin saw skiers making pilgrimages to the newly built slalom slope at Isaberg in Hestra. He enjoyed watching and may have dreamt about what might have been in his own youth if he’d had access to the same equipment instead of his long and ungainly birch skis. He discovered that skiers also needed durable gloves with special properties. Starting with his basic design, he began making skiing gloves along with his sons.

This tradition is continued today, 67 years later, in the hands of us, the third generation. There are many models and numerous areas of application, high-tech materials have been introduced and techniques developed. Even though Martin wouldn’t recognise the gloves today, his basic philosophy still lives on. We still make high quality gloves for active leisure and work. And leather is still our favourite material.

Our Shop Admnistrators hand pick products and these are our Hestra Hot Picks: