Technology
EP 195: Vantage Alpine Down Jacket - Product Deep Dive
In this episode of the Live Ultra Light Podcast, hosts dive deep into the development story of the Vantage Alpine Down Jacket, exploring its design concepts, testing, and features. Listeners will gain...
EP 195: Vantage Alpine Down Jacket - Product Deep Dive
Technology •
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Interactive Transcript
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Hey, everybody welcome back to the live ultra light podcast power by ultra vitals.
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Today we have a product deep dive, a development story with the Alpine Vantage jacket or is it the Vantage Alpine jacket?
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I have the Jelpine jacket.
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All right, we'll start again.
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Hey, everybody welcome back to the live ultra light podcast powered by ultra vitals.
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Today we have a product deep dive or a design story for the Vantage Alpine jacket.
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So yeah, we're going to be diving through the original concepts of why we want to develop this jacket,
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what went into it, testing, and then obviously the end result and how we got there.
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So stay tuned with us.
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This is a fun podcast.
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We have a lot of comments on these.
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People really enjoy these.
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And if nothing else, it will just help you understand this piece at a different level and help you build a lot of confidence in the gear that you're buying.
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So whether it be this Vantage Alpine jacket or maybe you're looking at another piece from us,
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go back on the live ultra light podcast and search for the piece that you're looking for because you will be able to get details about the products that we make at a deeper level in those podcasts than anywhere else really.
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So with that, let's talk about the Vantage jacket.
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How are we doing today, Brigham?
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Doing well.
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It's finally, finally cooling off.
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Seems to be permanently, which is nice.
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I mean, it's not like...
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It's the highest aren't I'm telling you.
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It's not easy or something.
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Up mid to up or 70s feels really nice.
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Mm-hmm.
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That's a good change, for sure.
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I just got back from Colorado.
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It was like that trip of the year where you realize you haven't adapted to the cold yet.
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Your body hasn't gone from being used to heat to cold.
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And so, yeah, I feel like that zapped me back into being used to the cold now.
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And now I'm hopefully more adapted.
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But it's really interesting how the body does that.
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I feel like...
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I feel like this is just spitball in here for a second.
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But sometimes I feel like my body varies.
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It's like temperature about five degrees from summer.
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Like I'm comfortable five degrees colder in the winter than I am in the summer.
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Or I'm comfortable when it's five degrees hotter in the summer than I am in the winter type of thing.
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I don't know if there's some science behind that, but I kind of want to look into it.
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I would...
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My opinion is that is you.
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That's both right?
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No, I would just say...
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I just think you in particular have never seen somebody that has such a swing of
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like what feels really cold and what feels like way too hot.
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I mean, I kind of base that a little bit off of...
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I don't know, like your thermostats in your house and stuff like that.
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I kind of vary, but maybe five is a little more than most.
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Anyways, I did get back from Colorado.
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I was just using this jacket for the week out there.
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And so it's top of mind.
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And I'm excited.
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We're going to be releasing this jacket.
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Right now, the tentative release date is September 29th for pre-sell.
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And then we're going to be shipping this jacket towards the end of October, early November.
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And for those of you that are wondering like why we're doing a pre-sell,
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the main purpose of the pre-sell is to allow people that are highly interested in this piece to
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lock in their color and size early.
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And then we are also going to airship or advance a portion of the production run
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to get it into those hands first and fastest.
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So if you do want this jacket, as soon as possible, again, around the end of October,
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start in November, you're going to want to participate in the pre-sell.
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We also, this is a part of the Mountain Pursuit line.
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And with the first two pieces that we released on the Mountain Pursuit line,
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we had such high demand that we kind of also want to do this pre-sell to just help gauge
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demand and also prepare for future orders because we blew through some of the stock on like day
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one, day two with the Mountain Pursuit line on certain colors and sizes.
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So be aware of that. I don't know what's going to happen with this. I don't know what the hot
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color is going to be. I actually was wrong on what I thought the hot color is going to be on the
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pants a little bit based off of our historic numbers. So yeah, definitely want to jump onto this
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pre-sell if you're listening to this podcast within a couple days of it being live. So, okay, so let's
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let's back all the way up to the beginning of where this concept came from and what we were trying
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to accomplish when we started this design process, Brigham. So walk us through kind of what we put on
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paper of this is what we were hoping to create. And we know we know we had created the right thing
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and were successful, you know, when we did these things. Yeah. I mean, the quickest easiest way is like
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it's almost like something I don't I don't like to say a design is based off of just like
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a couple arbitrary parameters, but it does kind of help, I don't know, bracket it in. But like
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the one of the, I guess, original concepts was to have basically like a one pound or 16 ounce
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jacket as warm as we could get it. And I will say it's like the number 16 ounces that's not really
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the important part because if you design something around just one parameter oftentimes you make a
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lot of sacrifices, but with the down jacket is it's an easy way to kind of sum up kind of the
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origins of it. Conceptually though, I really the reason for that is something 16 ounces or under
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is very it's very like it's it's packable. It's something you can you really can pack in your backpack
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not that it's needed in the summertime. But let's say you have a 16 ounce jacket like that's not
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going to break the bank. So to speak like it's not going to make or break your ability to knock out
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a hundred mile hike, you know, because you have four extra ounces of jacket. But what it does mean is
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there was kind of a gap in like some of the just really functional puppy down installation
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options out there including our own of just especially in regards to shoulder seasons spring and fall
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where temperatures get a lot colder at night. There's less sun there's less days of or less
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hours of sunshine or daylight that's just colder and so really wanted to just get the warmest jacket
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we could for kind of that weight threshold. I mean without you know frills and and gimmicks or
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features or things that really don't contribute to that. So maximizing warmth for kind of that one
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pound threshold again for where it really comes into play or the most benefit is in in shoulder
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seasons because in the summertime I've not experienced something I mean maybe one out of a thousand
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times I've been on a trip that you know in the summertime sure it would have been nice to have
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this but probably still would have been overkill in the summertime you can get away with much less
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insulation especially when you're doing like a through-hike type trip where you're most of your
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waking hours are spent walking and you're not hanging around camp for a long time and you're really
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just not static for very long so. I think that's a good point so I mean to kind of sum this up like
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we wanted we wanted to have some parameters on it kind of like with the shadow light we're like we
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want to keep it sub two pounds so kind of the same concept with this we didn't want a two pound jacket
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something that wasn't light wasn't packable wasn't usable in our setup so we kind of put a stake in
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the the ground at 16 ounces that I was trying not to pass this but let's make it as warm as we
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possibly can and you mentioned like no frills and things like that and so I want to I want to
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clarify that because that doesn't mean that we don't have features what it means is that we don't
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have features that don't add to warmth that don't add to function. We don't have extra features just
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you know just to have but it is still a very useful jacket the features that it does have very
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useful highly useful but I think you also bring up a really good point that I don't know for me
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and maybe this is just different but I I find it's kind of interesting in the summertime I'm doing
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a lot of like big mile days you know kind of walk in sun up to sundown and you know kind of doing
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the through hike mentality and so when you are at camp you know half the time when you're at
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camp it's like you are still warm from hiking and so like you've got high body temperatures then
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you like eat your dinner or something you pitch your tent and pretty much you just go straight
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into the tent often times but when I find in the shoulder seasons like you mentioned is one there's
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way more nighttime hours just in general the sun is not up as much and I'm I'm not usually doing
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as many miles and hike like the goal isn't to go as many miles it seems like but in general though
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you are sitting in camp a lot longer which is where it really makes a huge difference to have a
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piece like this you know I was just thinking back to like when we we went on design westroom
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last year me and you yeah and we were in camp a long time and we didn't have to break camp early
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because we weren't trying to log a big mile day and so we're using pieces like these a lot more
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in the shoulder season so yeah something something to think about I don't know if that's really
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the case for everyone obviously the more time that you plan to spend on it and spend in camp though
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the more these static or non you know like more stationary pieces of gear become very very valuable
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and our friend Steve with exo who also helped you know with development on this piece
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I like the way that he puts it which is I've never had a puffy jacket that I was like oh man
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this thing is just too hot I can't handle it right so it's like all right if we're gonna do 16 ounce
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jacket let's just make this as warm as possible we don't advise you hike actively hike in this piece
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it is built for for being stationary for for sitting in camp for for watching things maybe you're
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sitting maybe they're sitting there fishing I don't know something like that where you're just not
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moving and you need as much warmth as possible so okay so that was the parameters we kind of
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set out with we have obviously at our Dorados we've built a lot of jackets we have some base
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we had some initial knowledge and I'd imagine that's a good place to start and well what did we
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what did we want to start with and what did we throw out and and want to scrap well I mean
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in an insulated jacket the thing that keeps you warm is the insulation itself so
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that you know there's some easy decisions to make with regards to the jacket being packable
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and wanting to maximize the warmth for the weight that is an automatic shoe in for down it's just not
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even that it's just a no-brainer so obviously we knew we wanted to go with a with a down insulation
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and then you know when you want to maximize down insulation warmth to weight I mean
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the more down you put in it the warmer it gets regardless of fill power but there is a thing called
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fill power and what that means is you know a lower fill power of down would require even more
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down to go into the jacket which would be more weight the higher the fill power goes the less down
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you are required to put in the jacket to achieve the same level of warmth so you know making the
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decision there and there's you know there are there are diminishing returns both ways like the
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higher you go and the lower you go and so we had to make some decisions there and you know we want
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it this to be just a very warm jacket for the weight and so that that does lean us toward the
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direction of a higher fill power jacket so let's let's quickly touch on that because I think
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that's something that is just really powerful to know which is if you took a 900 plus fill power down
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and you wrapped it or put it inside of a heavy material that down will not have enough push
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to loft fully like to lift the fabric and to stay lofted fully so you do really have to pair
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the weight of the fabric with the higher fill power or the lower the fill power right so
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something to note there when when Brigham kind of mentioned that like you can totally
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spend a bunch of money on a really high fill power jacket put it in a heavy fabric and it did
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you know good essentially yeah I mean the only way that's why it's such a it is a balance of
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diminishing returns because yeah I mean if you can go to an ultra high ultra high fill power
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and then the trade offs are then you you really have to make sure very sure that you've got
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a very lightweight fabric that will allow maximum expansion of the down but really it's there's
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there's a lot of trial and error to that there's not just a recipe it's not just like oh look it up
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in the recipe book and it tells you what fabric weight to use with this much down in this size of a
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down chamber and this you know this fill power and so there's it's pretty blurry it's pretty blurry
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but we do there but you do reach a point where you could end up just actually shoving more down
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in something just to get it to loft up which kind of defeats the purpose of going to a higher fill
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power so that's not to say that we couldn't have used a higher fill power it just would have changed
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the balance of benefits and drawbacks to the jacket but so we ended up with so we use yeah it's
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850 fill power expedry down so yeah expedry that is the the down that is treated with net on gold
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and we've had incredible in the filled performance out of that now we've we've used
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DWR treated downs for a lot of years and there's good ones there there's okay ones there we had a lot
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of success with hyper dry which is a wax based one but what we found is really that down comes
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with a lot of its own DWR properties and the nano gold aspect basically excites water molecules
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and allows them to turn back into vapor form or dry more quickly and what we found is that in real
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world conditions that means it's your down just performs at incredibly high levels day after day after
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day and in this jacket there's a few other reasons why like waters just not a concern when it comes
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to fabrics and other aspects but there is a built in inherent DWR aspect to the down we use
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because we don't have to strip off the DWR the natural DWRs to to do expedry treatment so yeah it's
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it's been a really impressive coding for us for just day after day in tough conditions it just stays
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like 100% lofted yeah 100% probably too I probably shouldn't say that but like incredibly high
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loft very very low degradation of the down with with moisture yeah to clarify when
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and Tason talk about natural DWR like obviously he doesn't mean there's a natural DWR that grows on
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on ducks and geese he's referring to the the the natural body oils that that ducks and geese have
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that behaves like a water resistant compound on the on the down plumes themselves and then
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yeah the the expedry the treatment that makes expedry what it is it's permanently embedded
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nanoparticulates of gold within the microscopic down structure so this is it's not any kind of
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coding or covering of the down it's basically a it's a almost like a mechanical
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process that occurs around all the gold that is embedded within the down that basically
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resists the formation of bonds that allow water to form and therefore it's a constant state of
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that and it makes it hard for water to attach to the down or remain attached to the down and it
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works constantly to break down water molecules which is the speeding up of drying and the
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the nice thing about that that I like about expedry is it's a much better long term solution like
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in terms of if we're talking about down products you cannot you cannot make a down product with more
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down in it of an equivalent fill power without the cost of down without the cost of the jacket going
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up so knowing that we're making a more expensive jacket like we want the customer to get the
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a longer life out of the jacket and one of the things about traditional DWRs wax based chemical
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based either one those are a wash in or spray think about now there's like a coating of
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you know credibly thin paint all over down right or sunscreen that contributes to down breakdown
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at a faster rate than an untreated down and I've said this before expedry down is more
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of what would be considered a non DWR down than it is a DWR because it literally does not have
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a DWR on it so it cannot be classified as DWR and it lasts longer it regains its life or regains
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its loft for a longer period and I'm talking about like the lifetime of the jacket so let's say if
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it's a wax based DWR jacket you may get 20 years out of that right these are just arbitrary numbers
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well you'll probably get five to ten years more because the down does not have the ability to
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break down as fast because of the DWRs of another down yeah allied feathers the one who
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did all the work in creating this this down and they have some really interesting tests too that
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basically show them blowing really moist air into the down and then like compressing it and
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then watching rebound and like doing that doing cycles of that kind of stuff and expedry down
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just outperforms even their own like because they make DWR treated down too which is what we were
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using with hyper dry but it outperforms those and those kinds of tests and in real life that is
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a real life scenario is you know getting humid or moist you know one day and then getting a
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humid or moist the next day and humid or moist the next day so it's really a factor of how well can
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it dry how fast can it dry how thoroughly can it dry and it's it's really impressive with that
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and like Brigham said it doesn't wear off it doesn't fall off and it's pretty much like a natural
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um you know duck or goose down because you're talking about parts per million and when it comes to
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the gold so it's it's not like you're waiting down the the down compared to with the DWR you are
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coding the entire you know the entire plume essentially with this DWR coding which can reduce
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fill power and and longevity so really happy with that it's it's just just for for note here we
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have a jacket on the table like it's it's an incredibly soft um you know feel obviously even
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going from an 800 to an 850 it's noticeable it's and it's just very comfortable on the body and
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very lofty you can you can just feel the loft but okay so we went with down um we have a high
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confidence with with moisture and water with the down piece um you know if this is not a rain jacket
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but it is very resistant to to moisture um so we really like down for that aspect when it comes to
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just wait to warm thracios nothing touches down to this day so what else what else did we kind of
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take into consideration as we looked at what we've maybe done in the past what we wanted to change
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or do in the future um it's jacket yeah so we because we did kind of have the kind of a limit
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of what the the end jacket weight was target what what we wanted it to be so again that 16-ounce mark
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that's for a size large that was kind of the the benchmark um that meant you know we had to decide
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what we were going to include or not include um and some things we included that we obviously
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that are obvious like a full zipper a couple hand pockets some adjustability and we'll get sort
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of the reasons why but um again we wanted everything every design aspect of this to to point or
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to contribute toward warmth or heat retention um much less so we weren't going to include something
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that was not related to heat retention or warmth so this jacket doesn't have pizzips because that would
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just add oh maybe he announced in a half or two to the jacket and would decrease um or not contribute
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to the warmth of the jacket um certain you know extra pocketing the only pocketing we we include is
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on the exterior the two kind of lower hand pockets um and those um functionally contribute to
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basically like the ability to warm up our hands so technically speaking the jacket could be warmer
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by not having hand pockets but um for usability of a jacket in cold temperatures um
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it's much you like let's say you're sitting down to boil water and prepare dinner like that's
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you pretty much need the dexterity of your bare hands um so take your hands out of your pockets
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for a couple of minutes to turn your stove on put the pot on and then put your hands back in your
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pockets um so it's got those two hand pockets um and obviously the you know the insulation the pocket
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sits behind the insulation so you know the insulation is outward of where your hands are sitting
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sitting in the pockets um there are two drop pockets on the inside of where the hand pockets are
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and those are you know actually one of the I don't know several of the first part of the times
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we made that we got a lot of testing on we actually used mesh on the um the pocket liners of the
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pocket bags and part of that was for maybe some weight reduction and then just maybe some ability to
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uh dry you know say damp gloves or a beanie or something but what we found and got a lot of
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feedback on was man as soon as you unzip the pocket you could actually feel drafting uh just from
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just basically from wind from the open the open pocket and then air could kind of go
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wind could blow through the mesh and it was very noticeable and then so just going to a closed
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fabric and not a mesh pocket bag um it's like a very noticeable improvement that we made throughout
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the development process um yeah you would not think that a thin piece of fabric would be that much
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warmer than a mesh piece of fabric but it was absolutely yeah if you're sitting still and there's
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even a five mile per hour breeze like you definitely feel it um other functional design elements
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that we you know intentionally included were like a cinch cinch cord at the hem or a draw cord hem
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so the ability to essentially kind of close off the ability for warm air to evacuate down the bottom
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of the jacket that's another I don't I don't think I wouldn't say it's like nobody knows about it
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but it's underrated I think how much heat you can lose out the bottom of a jacket um just by
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not cinching it up um it's it's not a big deal if it's just like for like five or ten minutes but
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if you're just like sitting still or especially standing still for more than a few minutes like
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you'll start to feel a lot like you'll you'll start to feel like you are wondering why your jacket
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is not warming you up as much and it's because you're losing a lot of heat out the bottom of the jacket
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yeah I actually noticed that with that with the mesh liner I noticed that more from air coming
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under the hem of the jacket than coming in because usually I'd like have my my hand in the pocket
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and then I've got to sleeve on it kind of seals the whole of the the pocket but then you would
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just notice as you walked or moved or leaned just this cold air blast that would come underneath the
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hem of the jacket from the bottom of the jacket and up and into your hands and it really just like
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I've never used the cinches on the bottom of the jacket more than when we had those mesh pieces
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because it was like super super apparent how much cold air can get in the bottom of the jacket
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we had a heat gun and I'm we're going to try to get some footage of this some pictures of this
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but I remember watching a video probably 12 years ago now on YouTube one of the like OGs on YouTube
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that would kind of review certain jackets he under retail shop I think it was pro light gear or
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something like that and he I remember he did a video on this with a thermal camera and just showed
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how much cold air comes out of the bottom of a jacket and it was really really prominent and so
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yeah having that cinch cord on the bottom of the jacket is is a must when you're talking about
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how to stay as warm as possible in the jacket yeah and again that the theme here when we talk about
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the intentional design elements they're they're all attentive to we're all directed to retaining
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heat so if we didn't include a cinch cord yeah the jacket might be one ounce lighter
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but it would be noticeably less warm so again warmest jacket we can make for about 16 ounces
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including that draw cord hem is it was a necessity for sure
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on the hood adjustability so we do have an adjustable hood again that's not just for
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convenience yes it is annoying to have a hood on that's too big and so when you look around or
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move your head you know your head just kind of moves within the hood that is annoying it's
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inconvenient it's not that comfortable but also the the main reason to include the ability to
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cinch up a face opening or to kind of draw the hood in a little bit is to eliminate or reduce
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heat escaping out the hood because now you've got the bottom closed off air is going to
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try to escape so close off the bottom with the draw cord hem and then we also want the ability to
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you know restrict the ability for heat to escape out the chimney which is you know the collar and
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the hood and so we've got the ability to cinch it up behind the head and that kind of closes the
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hood in just around the circumference of the head and then the face opening we have draw cords
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that kind of enclose the face opening around your the front of your head so those definitely
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I mean those are there's nothing uncommon about that they're but they're they're intentionally
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included in the jacket for sure let's talk about the fabric this is a new development on fabric
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but it also uses some of the technology we've had in other jackets so why did we want to use
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zero stitch technology and what did we change in this fabric well we like we like zero-sizz
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fabric so we have our Nova Pro jacket and that's we've got a lot of experience with that jacket and
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we just really like the benefits of it which really are they're really easy to remember
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and the easiest way to remember it is that zero stitch fabric allows you to make a down jacket
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without punching tens of thousands of holes in your jacket it's a really interesting thing it's
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not a bad thing to have you know a jacket with traditionally stitched down chambers they work
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they're fine however we have just
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observed over years that we like this better because it's more wind resistant it's more water
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resistance more dust resistant dust resistance leads to longevity of the down inside the jacket the
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down is the money maker the down is what makes us warm why would we not want to take the best
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care of it that we can the the dust resistance means we don't have to wash it as much
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longevity of the jacket also warmth of the jacket dust is the most significant deteriorator or
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I don't know what the word is but it's the it's a significant contributor to down degradation
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dust and dirt that comes into the jacket and then it also reduces or almost mitigates like
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the the ability for down to escape out the stitch holes and when I say 10,000 stitch holes
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talked about it before that's a real number it's more like 12 to 13,000 but in a size medium
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jacket I mean that's how many stitch holes exist in a very standard weight down jacket that is
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traditionally sewn together um I don't want to over be overbearing about the stitch holes but I mean
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it's 10,000 plus holes in your jacket that don't need to be there um so those are the benefits I mean
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we we wanted to try at least at the beginning of this project we wanted to try to use that technology
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but when we knew how much down we had to put in it um there was not a a fabric using zero stitch
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technology that was available right away so we had to talk with fabric suppliers and the
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fabric mill um basically to um use zero stitch fat technology to create a fabric that had down
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chambers that were big enough to allow the amount of down that we needed to put in the jacket so
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yeah we've we've really been happy with zero stitch uh typically water gets caught up on stitching
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and that's where it seeps into your jacket if it is in water for some reason um and that's
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that's like part of what like protects your down right keeping moisture out of your jacket keeps
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your down lofted warm performing at top notch actually grabbed a jacket the other day um and
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just held it up to like a window that had stitching in it and just looked at the stitching lines and
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like it's one of those things that it kind of feels like once you see it you can't unsee it because
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it was like yeah some of the stitches are very small and tight and then some of them especially where
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they did like some back stitching and stuff towards the end of some of them it was like holy cow those
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are some big old holes in there but what I always tell people is like all describes zero stitch and
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it's like yeah it's really cool but I'm like but what you will notice I would in my personal experience
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is when you take it out on a windy day you will notice that the wind does not cut through the jacket
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like especially if this was just on your bare skin like over like you're on a short sleeve shirt
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and you put this on and if you were to switch back and forth between the two jackets you will
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notice the amount of wind blockage this is it's ability to block the wind is so much higher with zero
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stitch it feels like compared to a traditionally baffled and sewn baffled on the other one so
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so we really like that um but we wanted to take it up a notch as well so we um started working with
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our fabric mills to develop a more muted color and a softer color and yeah kind of also change the
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the noise profile a little bit too so um if those of you that are watching on youtube you can see
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this jacket here in front of us it's a matte color or a matte finish um compared to a lot of
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down jackets if you were just think about them they're gonna have that shiny glossy look and so we
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were able to take that away but it did require some some changes because um with this particular
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fabric the inner material and the outer material are actually woven at the same time together into a
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single sheet of fabric um so we can't do different treatments like some some um fabric or excuse
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excuse me some fabrics you can that you're using and say like a down sleeping bag or something like
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that because it's a single layer of fabric we can't get on the inside and put a coating on we
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can only work on the exterior and so there are some some big challenges there and um thankfully
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the mills that we're using are just super impressive in the fact that they're able to weave this
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so tight and so thoroughly that we're able to um essentially do little to no treat or coatings
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on this fabric um and but still retain down proofness right because down is such a fine material
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it can seep through or push through fabrics and um so that's why there's you know typically that
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shiny coating on a lot of down is to keep the down inside the material um but we were able to
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essentially prototype and build this alongside with them um and then test it in the fill and make
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sure you know that the tolerances were were there that it was going to hold the down in and it's
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been remarkable but it's also just a really sharp looking jacket and and it was that like that's
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something like like a lot I guess what I'm saying is a lot of people to see this jackal just think
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oh cool it's Matt now like but they don't know is like it's actually really incredibly hard to do
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it's really hard and it's been a bit of a frustration for us I mean the fabric that ends up
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on a jacket is great but the process to make the fabric the the amount of loss due to tolerance
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rejection is massive so essentially it's like taking 10 steps forward and four steps back
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like that's the weaving process to to to to to meet the tolerances and the requirements for the fabric
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um the fabric mill loses a lot of fabric because it it has to be woven to such a tight tolerance um
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that it's so it's a slow process it takes a long time to to make the fabric because it has to pass
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certain tolerance thresholds um and it's just tough to do and and we're grateful that
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the the fabric mill has the capability to do it and that you know we're able to end up with fabric
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to make jackets with but it's uh it's definitely uh it's caused delays it's caused delays um and
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to how unless they're lesain to to their credit but to to I would say to not disparage the the
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fabric mill um they didn't really know either because they this fabric didn't exist they'd never
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made a production run of this fabric so um it's hard for them to schedule and plan out and give us
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and actually end up at the target date of completion um because at the same time they're realizing
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the the slower than expected manufacturing rate that they can actually weave the fabric so
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it's been frustrating and and difficult but um it's a really it's a good learning experience
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it's hard to make the fabric and but we are we're happy with it I mean um I guess the the details
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on the fabric it's a 15-D 15-D-Denier nylon fabric um 100% nylon it's not a not a stretch fabric
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that keeps the fabric lightweight um and um yeah we're we're happy like early prototypes we had
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where we were mostly just trying to dial in the spacing for the for the down chambers they were
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super shiny really really shiny um oh yeah and and so we did we we we know what that looks like
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because we the first fabric that the fabric mill made was was really shiny and that especially
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when you're talking about these massive baffles it it put off even more shine it's like a huge
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reflection of light you know you really see like the depth of all the the down chambers because of the
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the contrast created by the shininess but yeah I mean and just coming back to that like
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this is a first time for this fabric um no one else has this fabric like no one's making this
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fabric it's a unique fabric to us at the moment that doesn't mean it won't we'll be forever but
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um it is a really technical fabric and the mill the mill will continue to refine you know like the
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loss will go down every time we produce this jacket so something to note there it's not like this
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is a wasteful jacket um anytime you develop a new fabric and new technology and new anything
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that there's some level of that that is to be expected but the reality is this is a really
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technical fabric really challenging to make not a lot of this is the kind of fabric that like we've
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I think we've talked about this before but like even when we're talking about our supplier that has
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you know a factory in Japan and a factory in um China and a factory in whatever Thailand like
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they will tell us only our Japanese fabric or factory can make this because they're the only
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ones that can produce under such a tight tolerance or things like like even a company that has the
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same management and the same people in the same machinery um like that like there's a level of
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difficulty that just requires that much skill from the people working in the factory and
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anyways it's it's really interesting really fascinating um stuff when you when you dive into it
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but um I think you guys are really gonna like this fabric I think you're really really gonna like it
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the look the feet the hand feel it's very soft so like when you have the other shiny fabrics um
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it feels glossy it feels sticky tacky whereas this is just so soft and smooth on the hand um
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it's just a really likable fabric for sure so if we have the zero stitch fabric completely new design
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finish etc we've gone through some of the features uh you know tighteners him him tighteners and
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and face closure um
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went through the fabric okay let's talk about this we did skip over this a little bit coming back to
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the down um I actually was kind of thinking through some some video content of what what I could
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make kind of around this specifically around like what makes a jacket warm you know going through
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this whole development process what makes a jacket warm and I kind of simplified it down to a few
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things um one is like what is the down and what is the amount of the down you know how many
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baffles does a jacket have even if it's non zero stitch that matters because if you've got something
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that's baffled very very tightly meaning they just have a ton of the sewing lines across it
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that typically means that there's less down on it that there's more holes in the jacket for wind and
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it's water to get in um so you know baffle thickness baffle construction really matters
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and then obviously the last features would be like the hem the hem tightener and um you know your
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face closures and things like that those those three things kind of in categories lump in my mind
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what makes a good jacket and so if you have a jacket that you know you're thinking about
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that's like oh man like I hate to throw this one under the bus it's just really well known
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top of mine if you look at like a ghost whisperer jacket they've got so many baffles so tightly
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sewn together usually their baffles are maybe two centimeters or something like that apart which
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doesn't give down a lot of space to loft but really they do that because of the amount of down in
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the jacket so just using that jacket as as a comparison in there um I think it's 850 fill but it
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might be plus or minus it might be 800 or 900 but it's right in that category somewhere between
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800 and 900 fill power they have 2.5 ounces of down in that jacket and so they have to sew it
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that tightly to keep the down from just falling all over the jacket and clumping up and shifting
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and keep the down in place with ours we're able to do really big baffles and leave it really open
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because of the amount of down and the fill power of our down so um in our jacket and I you'll know
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these numbers better than me and maybe I'll have you say these but in our jacket we have over
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seven ounces of down I believe in the size medium which is incredible as I was I was doing just some
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other research on this um I really couldn't find much to compare like like the only pieces get
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into like a 400 500 dollar price range that have that much down and typically they're built
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for like extreme alpine stuff yeah I mean it's it's not that it's like impossible for
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I'm just saying like yeah I think in general brands you guys know that's the and this comes back to
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what we talked about pretty early in the podcast is there's a gap um and a lot of that gap
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exists because maybe these bigger brands they have to kind of the they're looking at a development
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for the masses to appeal to as many people as possible at once and like this jacket is just not
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designed for that this jacket is for the user that spends a lot of time in shoulder seasons um
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some brands might not be willing to to put that into design brief because maybe management or
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investors aren't willing to focus in that narrow on a user um but we are um and we that's part of
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what we enjoy doing here and so um you know when we talk about how much down we put in here that's
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a plug-and-play recipe anybody can do that like that's that's a reality it's just that
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we just recognize um and then you mentioned like Steve at exo like that was one of the things that he
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came to us with is like there's kind of this gap like if I want if it's if it's October and
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um like on a backpacking hunting trip and I need to sit down for an hour I don't want to freeze because
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the only offerings available are 13 ounces and they have two thirds of the amount of down there's
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just a gap and so um you know it's that's why when we make this decision okay we're gonna make
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this jacket then all decisions are going to lead towards keeping it as warm as possible because
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you know for a 16 ounce jacket we can put in a size large you know seven and a half ounces of
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850 failed down um and those there's just not a lot of jackets out there that that do that um
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it's expensive down's the most expensive well probably the most expensive thing you're putting
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into this jacket absolutely um it's very yeah it's very pricey to to buy and treat and and
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stuff down into a jacket for sure so so when I think about it like like I think there's a cost
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element for some reasons why there's not always more down um and then like I guess that like just
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know not all puffies are the same sometimes puffies get put into this category and it's like oh I've
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got a puffy jacket you know check the box well there's just no comparing this piece to a jacket
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that has two ounces of down in it um you're talking about a jacket that has three times the
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amount of down in it so it's definitely those details not all puffy jackets are the same
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but our goal of this was to load it with as much down as we possibly could um of a premium down
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you know as we as we possibly could and that's where you get just so much loft so much of the warmth
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so like you mentioned about seven and a half ounces of down and a size large on this jacket which
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is incredible um and it's even more credible when you start to look at the price point on this um
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compared to other offerings out there so this piece is releasing at a price point of $275
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for the amount of down for the technicality of this fabric for everything that's gone out of this
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jacket um it is a very very competitive price I guess that's how I would put that um but
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you know now you guys are educated you can go and compare what uh what other jackets are out there
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you know you can pair the amount of down the fill power the quality you know all of those aspects
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um and put it head to head and I think you'll be really really impressed with the price point
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and everything else that this jacket has offered I know that I was um even as I was just doing
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some preparation for some other stuff and I started to just look around like it's not like we
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design a product and we look at all these competitors all the time and so sometimes we'll get to the
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end and I'll look at some of these competitors of like okay what's this going to go head to head with
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and what's it going to compare to and um it's super impressive super super impressive so you guys
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have the info now you can you can go and consider the fact like how tight you know baffled things are
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and how much down and and you know that whole thing um but again this piece super happy with it
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I was just in Colorado um it was literally snowing on us as we were walking in um super cold mornings
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super cold evenings wind blasting us up at you know 12th honk these 12,000 feet uh passes and um
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and I was doing a lot of static sitting right so I was I was out there hunting and so um
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I was sitting a lot staying you know motionless a lot and um super super impressive piece I think it
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really is kind of one of those capstone you know uh trips where you're just like yep I think we
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we we nailed it and every way I don't have anything to add or subtract from the jacket um
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but yeah I mean it's just when you need when you need something that is just bomb proof warmth
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I think that's when you really turn to something like this when you don't want to you have to be
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concerned about um if it's overly windy or if there's a lot of moisture coming down because
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this isn't a rain jacket but when you are in rain stuff gets wet like at least a little bit wet
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you're putting on a rain jacket on top you're taking it off you're you're layering you're unlayering
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you know things are happening and water will come in contact with this or you're getting into your
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tent well when it's actively raining there's so much more humidity in the air and more moisture
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um and condensation that gets into your tent and all those things and there's just zero worry
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with this jacket um actually my kids wanted to go out and play in the rain about two months ago
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and it was just torrential downpour for about an hour and I was like oh this will be a good like
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torture test like this is not what this jacket's built for but it's like it's good torture test
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so I threw on this piece went out there um and it was just getting dumped on for for an hour straight
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and I had like no moisture inside the jacket at the end of it the only places I had moisture
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or where it could run down a little bit of a seam or right underneath my armpit where I'm playing
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with my kids outside right so I'm actively getting water kind of coming down underneath my armpit
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and then as I'm squishing my arm back down my armpit it it did get a little bit of moisture there
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but like it's just bombproof um it if you take it out and whatever conditions it will perform
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it's definitely what I love about zero stitch what I love about x-per-dry um it's a it's a it's a
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phenomenal jacket so yeah I think I mean um I think what I what gives me uh I don't know
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about not validation I get maybe confidence would be the word but so I've talked to a lot about
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shoulder seasons okay I like I'm gonna say straight up if I'm going on a backpacking trip in July
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in the Rocky Mountains I'm not packing this jacket like that I have no qualms about saying that
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it's just totally unnecessary but this jacket was tested extensively in the seasons and conditions
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that it was designed for specifically shoulder seasons so we had about a dozen guys that over a
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period from like the last week of August to the last week of October we're going to be in Alaska
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and that that describes a very wide range of conditions talking southeast Alaska more central inland
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Alaska um I think getting up close to the Brooks Range in Alaska from late August through October
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um as well as Kodiak Island in November um so those conditions that's like the sweet spot of where
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we sent this jacket for testing in addition to our own testing over probably two years of doing
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the same thing in the lower 48 during those seasons so um that's where those experiences that
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testing that feedback that really drove and guided the end product um so we didn't say well let's
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make a jacket for shoulder seasons and test it out on a couple you know five day backpacking trips
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Colorado in July and then come to you in a podcast and make a bunch of ads and put a product listing
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on the website says oh yeah this is a great shoulder season jacket except we'd never used
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in a shoulder season like that's not the way we do things um so when we say this is a great
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shoulder season jacket it's because we have about 75 days of testing in Alaska um over multiple
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years as well as you know days spent at over 10,000 feet in February uh in November in March in April
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um truly in the shoulder seasons that it's designed for the people making the jacket or using it
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the way it's designed to be used um and that's I think that's a big part of the jacket I think I think
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the testing and iterative design um you know that goes into this jacket is it's a huge part of it.
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Yeah it's a very well tested jacket it's been under development for over two years um
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um and we used a you know a group of very well vetted guys too to run this you know as much or
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maybe some of them even more than me and bring them or able to because they just do nothing but
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with outside uh they'll have to come into the office maybe but we've we've it is a very very
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well tested jacket um by by 20 plus guys um and it's it's been phenomenal you know we've been
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able to refine and refine and refine and it's now ready for us to to stamp our logo on it and
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and send it out the door and let you guys take it out into um those same those same type of conditions
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and and see for yourself what we've been able to build here so okay any any last comments to add
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here oh I mean if one last thing I don't know why I thought about this but though we we went as far
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with this jacket even to take off the thumb hole loops on the sleeves because through testing and
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in those cold conditions even those little thumb hole loops that we have on like the Nova Pro
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they let air in they let air up the sleeve yeah um and it was noticeable and we tested it and we paid
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attention to it and um so I mean every little touch point on this piece has been has been looked at
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analyzed evaluated um to come full circle to this piece so yeah any last any last comments on the
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vantage before we let you guys guys just uh checking out on the website I guess quick rundown of
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we're offering it in three colors uh this chimera it's kind of depending how you look at it it's
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sometimes a dark gray sometimes there's some green in it um yeah but it's kind of a darker
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darker darkest color we're offering it in black and then a dusty olive um and then size wise small
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to three excel and then in tall sizes at least in a large in an x large in excel tall
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yeah pretty sure that's at least and you'll see you'll actually see us doing that if that's not
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what this jacket is just so you know that's probably what we're gonna end up doing in the future
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we've been offering these tall sizes predominantly the tall sizes are being taken in a large
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in the excel sizes so yeah you'll probably see us continue to produce that um but it seems like
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there's not near as many talls in like a two excel three excel so just so you're aware and even in
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the mediums um those those weren't as as popular either so but we do want to there's a lot of
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guys that seems like that are in that large extra large category um that are just fit more trim
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dudes and they need that length so we'll continue to make them that but yeah really great colors um
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so check out the colors check out the sizes again don't sleep on this don't wait to buy it until
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we're actively shipping because um we did not estimate the level of demand for this mountain
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pursuit collection um and so we do expect a high turnout um when we when we hit go on this so
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September 29th um we'll be when we hit go on this and you're yeah you're gonna want to grab your
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your specific color and size that you want um before they're before they're out and we're
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airship some of these that's the other part too is if you wait there's possibility that you will
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not be waiting um like you'll be you'll not be able to get your jacket until more into the
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middle end of November versus the the start of November or the even the end of October for fortunate so
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okay well it's been a fun project it's always fun to wrap up a project finally you know deliver it
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to you guys and let's you guys put your own hands on it and take it out in the field um it's been
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fun to have you know we had three product launches in the last couple months um this will be our fourth
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super exciting um and fun to just be bringing these projects full circle that have been
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literally under development for years and years um but we've got more we'll continue to develop
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and um for that reason make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast uh we'll always do these
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deep dives when they're releasing a new product let's you guys have all of the information you need to
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make confident decisions on your gear um but yeah I appreciate you guys being here make sure you're
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subscribed like and share the podcast if you would and we'll see you guys on a future episode
Topics Covered
Vantage Alpine jacket
Alpine Vantage jacket
product deep dive
jacket design story
pre-sell jacket
Mountain Pursuit line
down insulation jacket
lightweight packable jacket
shoulder season gear
outdoor gear podcast
warmth for weight
insulated jacket features
fill power down
camping gear essentials
hiking clothing
cold weather apparel