In the early 'sixties, Rossignol mainly produced skis made of solid wood, but was already working on the creation of a revolutionary model: the Strato. Perfected in 1964, its goal was to "liberate" the skier thanks to precise handling and large curve radius, made possible thanks to a composite structure combining fiberglass laminates with a wooden core.

In his book "Rossignol: 50 years of my life", Laurent Boix-Vives describes this "liberation": "From the start of the 1964 season, the Strato was being worn by many high-level skiers. Once they had tried it, they didn't want to be separated from it. They were won over by the qualities of this ski which proved to be swift, laterally supportive, and thus highly competitive for the slalom, making trajectory control easier and allowing for maximum risk taking".

The world's first ski made of fiberglass, the Strato would enable many champions to mount the podium, including French skiers Annie Famose in the Portillo World Championships of 1966, and Ingrid Lafforgue in the Val Gardena World Championships of 1970. Marketed until 1975, the Strato is still today the only ski to have exceeded sales of 1 million pairs worldwide.

Cover page: The podium for the giant slalom at the Olympic Games in Grenoble, 1968: Swiss skier Fernande Bochatay, bronze medal, Canadian Nancy Greene, gold medal, and Annie Famose, silver medal… Two of them sporting Stratos!