WINTER JACKETS

Last weekend I was at the local Sports Authority retail store so I could see what was now being shown in the way of winter jackets. I was not surprised to see the latest fashion garments that are quilted in one to one and a half inch spaces or one inch to two inch wide channels or elongated diamond patterns. The thickness of the insulation whether it is synthetic or down is at best one quarter inch or less. Remember these are "winter jackets". One company is showing on their hang tag a cut-a-way of their synthetic insulation that it is baffled as one makes a down sleeping bag, this is not true, as it is sewn through not baffled construction. They also show that the down is supposedly a baffled construction, again not true. When I looked at the many outerwear garments from other companies for the up coming winter again I essentially saw the same style garments.

When I take into consideration that the winters have been getting colder and a little longer each year I wonder what is going on in the minds of the people charged with developing cold weather garments for these companies and I come to the conclusion that they basically have no knowledge of insulation let a lone the best way to use it since they do not make the garments here in the USA but farm out the production mostly in Asia. But they do get lots of advertising dollars from the companies that supply them with these so called insulating materials.

Of course they have literature on their hang tags espousing the non-existent virtues of the new super-duper insulation used in these garments. One company shows a jacket with 650 fill down in one garment and 750 fill down in and other. They call it "turbo down", but there is no explanation as to what that exactly is. In my opinion it is non-sense.

My opinion is that any one buying these garments for use in south Florida say in July will be very happy, for use say in NYC in December or January not so happy.

Buyer be ware of fashion versus function, and these garments maybe fashionable but certainly not function-able as winter outerwear.