Welcome to HESS Skiboots! I'm Ruedi Hess, the founder and innovator behind this new concept ski boot, “performance through comfort”. With a great passion for skiing and a relentless pursuit of improvement, I set out to create a product, that would take the skiing experience to improved performance and yet enjoying the comfort of the skiboot.

Since a young age, skiing has been a part of my life. From those exhilarating descents down the slopes around my home at just three years old, to becoming a certified Swiss ski instructor and working in North American and Swiss ski resorts, skiing has always been my true calling.

As the CEO of companies in the fields of yarns, technical textiles, and synthetic materials, I have gained invaluable technical and engineering expertise. This knowledge, combined with my love for skiing, led me to recognize a significant gap in the industry. While other aspects of ski gear evolved and improved, ski boots remained stagnant for over 50 years.

Hard-shell boots, with their rigid structure, failed to adapt to the unique shapes and needs of individual feet. The result? Discomfort, reduced performance, and a missed opportunity to enhance the skiing experience further. It became my ambition to combine my skiing passion with technical fabrics, plastics, and engineering know-how to create a truly high-performance and comfortable ski boot.

After five years of relentless testing, exploring countless ideas, and utilizing 3D printing prototyping technology, the HESS Skiboot was born.

The HESS Skiboot “Performance through Comfort” is making a debut on the slopes in the season 2025/2026 and will be available in specialized ski shops in fall 2026 for the 2026/2027 season.