Saas-Fee celebrates 40 years of Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’

A karaoke booth has been set up by the main bus stop, but it only plays one song. Shoulder pads have been fished out of drawers. Hairspray is on standby. The Swiss ski resort of Saas-Fee is ready to party like it’s 1984. It’s 40 years since English pop stars George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley – aka Wham! – arrived in Saas-Fee, a village of 1,600 people in the canton of Valais, to make a last-minute video for Last Christmas. It’s the wintry anthem that, every December, pumps out of radio stations from Toronto to Tokyo, with nearly two billion downloads on streaming service Spotify and more than 900 million views on YouTube. Even if you don’t know all the lyrics, you’ve probably hummed it. And Saas-Fee is certainly not letting the global public relations opportunity pass it by. This December, visitors who come to schuss down its 150km of pistes will also discover guided Wham! walks, Wham! cocktails, Wham! parties and, in the town’s museum, alongside 19th-century weaving looms, beds ...