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Why Your Rich Neighbor’s Down Jacket Looks Different Than Yours
This L.L. Bean coat is the down jacket that your rich neighbor wears when it’s cold outside. The question is, why? Looking at a jacket that is the same size, the same weight, the same thickness – the L.L. Bean jacket is warmer, more wind resistant, more water resistant, more comfortable, down doesn’t leak out of it, and it has stretch.
Most importantly, though, new jackets have this weird square pattern on them, and they generally look different. Why is that? What is that?
A Quick History: From WWII Bombers to Modern Parkas
Let’s talk about the B6 jacket from the company Avirex, first introduced in 1939 and has not changed ever since. The B6 bomber is a lighter-weight version of the B3 bomber (I like the B6 better) that was commonly used during World War II for pilots who were training in open-cockpit planes.
Notoriously hated by Åke of Fjällräven because it was very heavy and all this other stuff, but notoriously loved by Michael of the Iron Snail.
Next up is a 1962 Eddie Bauer K2. This was really the first ever purpose-built expedition parka in existence by Eddie Bauer when Eddie Bauer was the king of down jacket makers.
All these jackets are very cool, very fantastic but the true goal of this article is to make a guide on how to get a warm, affordable, cool jacket. We’ve done an absolute butt ton of articles on winter jackets but never a basics article on what makes a good winter jacket and how to stay warm, so that’s this article.
The Iron Snail Guide to Winter Jackets
Welcome to class, everybody. I hope you’re doing well. We at Iron Snail Industries have created what we like to call the winter jacket selection system.
This is the entire system and the entire course in one easy article – all you have to do is read it. Let’s learn how to stop being cold outside!
Layering 101: Your Winter Survival System
Layering typically is the answer to all of your outdoor woes if you are too hot when you go outside, probably because of your layering. If you’re too cold, it’s probably because of your layering.
And I usually find that if you just hate the cold, it’s probably because you don’t have a good mitten or hat system or layer system in general. It’s usually not the last piece of your outerwear.
Base Layers: The Foundation
You can break your layering system down to three pieces: you have your base layer, you have your mid layer, and you have your outer layer.
Your base layer is exactly what it sounds like – the section that is close to your base, to your actual body. So it’s very soft, usually very stretchy. Its job is to wick moisture and be very breathable, but it’s not supposed to be super warm.
Your base layer could come in synthetic or wool or synthetic wool blend. Synthetic is usually polyester because polyester absorbs virtually no water, so it will just wick moisture away and then dry really, really fast.
The number one complaint about synthetic stuff, though, is that you can stink way quicker. Synthetic fibers and fabrics and stuff as a whole have a ton of money and research going into them.
You can use insanely fine yarns because of their strength, but there are some great things with natural fabrics that polyester and synthetic materials can’t naturally emulate on their own.
So, to work around that, brands will coat the fabric in things like heavy metals and chemicals and stuff like that to make them more odor-resistant or antibacterial or things like that.
Wool absorbs moisture, but it has a tolerance for absorbing moisture. It still insulates when wet, it’s naturally bacteria resistant, it’s naturally anti-odor, it’s naturally flame retardant – there’s a bunch of good things with it, but it is more fragile, so usually a blend is the best choice here: polyester, spandex, and wool or some mix of everything.
Something you’ll also see right now is mesh base layers, which are very trendy, AKA fishnets. People are walking around in fishnets, and they’re noting that they are warmer and more breathable, so they’re the best of both worlds. I – that’s if you layer properly, not just you can’t just walk out here in fishnets and be like, “Wow, this is so much better than my jacket.”
Mid Layers: The Heat Keeper
Similar conversation when we’re talking about mid layers, except obviously, these are beefier layers. This is the majority of what you’ll be wearing if you’re going for a hike. You’re probably going to be in your mid-layer until you stop somewhere, and then you will put on your outer layer because you’re not doing a lot of active movement, so you will get cold. You will get cold really fast.
Obviously, the Patagonia fleece is an icon, the same as North Face. That is how those brands got their start from synthetic fleece. You can do that and it has all the same benefits as a synthetic base layer that we talked about before, but you can also dive into the world of a wool sweater.
I’m currently wearing a synthetic mid-layer, which you’re probably like, “What that doesn’t make any sense.” Listen, I’m at my parents’ house, I’m on Cape, I’m relaxing. Chances are if you knock on the door at my parent’s house and I answer the door, I am wearing Christmas tree pajamas and an Avengers t-shirt, and I haven’t showered in 3 days.
What’s really important is the weight of the overall fleece and then the stitch of the overall fleece. If you have an effective layer on the outside over your fleece, that loft that you’re getting from – if we’re looking at sweatshirts, for example, Billy Goat version one is a jersey stitch, very flat.
Billy Goat version two is a thermal knit, it’s higher – you have a higher loft, and if you have a layer over that stopping air from moving, that becomes a very, very warm sweater.
Don’t Forget Your Extremities
The cool thing about layering is that you really can take that philosophy everywhere, and you should. So obviously with boots and stuff like that, think about the socks you’re wearing, think about the insulation level of your boots, stuff like that.
But more importantly, mittens and hats. I have Chopper mittens from L.L.Bean a very long time ago, but you can get Chopper mittens basically anywhere, and layering is important here because you have your breathable layer and then your less breathable layer.
On the hat front, obviously, think about whether your jacket is going to have a hood or not. You can get a regular beanie. You can get a beanie and a watch cap.
You can get a trapper hat; you can get a balaclava because I feel like the worst part when I’m outside is always my mouth and my nose, so get a gaiter if you don’t get a balaclava. But that’s layering, that’s basic systems.
The Battle of Materials: Nylon vs. Wool
Okay, part two on how to stop being cold outside: we are moving on to outerwear, and we’re starting with the outermost section of outerwear, which is the outside. So, typically, that’s going to be nylon or wool. What’s obviously great about nylon is it’s just incredibly strong.
A baseline that’s not always true is it’s about two times as strong as cotton at a similar weight. That is why you can get nylon to be very soft and thin. You can make interesting pockets on down jackets because you don’t have to worry about really thick 30, 24, or 27-ounce wool.
The one thing I wanted to say when you are shopping for a down jacket, if there is nylon, is typically try to go as heavy as you can with the nylon.
Nylon is very strong, but it does have its limits, so if you’re looking for a jacket that you’re going to wear hopefully for years and years and years, it might not be the move.
And then we have little old wool. What’s cool about wool is – that nylon protects or holds down inside of the jacket, that’s the insulation layer.
Wool is the insulation, so you get much heavier jackets. You either really like that, or you don’t really like that – I happen to really like that.
Wool is more breathable. It’s a tougher fabric because of the weight that comes with it. It’s antibacterial, it’s insulating when wet, it’s odor resistant, you hardly ever have to wash it – there’s a ton of cool things about it. But for me, the coolest thing about wool is that it feels much more alive, it feels much more like a heritage piece versus down jackets.
There’s something about wool that I just freaking love. Filson, Weatherwool (shout out to Ralph), Johnson Wool and Mills – I know where they get their wool, good stuff – Duckworth, vintage Woolrich, Pendleton, Gloverall, Schott for peacoats, and then, of course, there’s good old Iron Snail.
The goal of the Iron Snail, if you don’t know, is to be far beyond the grade, to make stuff absolutely the best that I possibly can be, and the reason I’m telling you this very quickly is that there’s a lot of people signed up to get mammoths right now and not a lot of mammoths in existence.
So please, if you are at all interested in one, sign up for the email list because I’ll be emailing everybody in around a week to guarantee everybody gets a mammoth this year.
The one thing I did want to say about wool, though, is it’s extra imperative that you layer with wool because wool is just naturally not as warm as down because you can loft it out. Layering with wool is when it becomes unstoppable.
The Super Nerdy Details on Jacket Construction
Okay, now this is the true nerdy detail section. This is my favorite part of the article. This is also the most frustrating part of the article because you will quickly learn it’s almost impossible for manufacturers to tell you how warm your jacket actually is compared to anything.
That’s why you have to trust the 1 out of 5 warmth or three snowflakes instead of two snowflakes. You’ll notice Weatherwool, who makes a very, very heavy, beautiful winter jacket, they all say their wool, if we’re talking about ounces, is 18.5, 19 ounces.
Filson will say there are 24.5 ounces. Weatherwool is actually heavier by a pretty large degree because it is measured on a standard system. Filson is not really giving you all that information.
But also, the weight of the fabric doesn’t always correspond to warmth, as we know, because down is lighter but warmer than wool.
You could say, “Okay, this fabric is heavier, but this one is napped on both sides so the loft is a lot higher, so it traps more air.”
Or “This one is just woven tighter, this one is woven looser, this one has a DWR finish on it, this one has different size yarns, this one has this and that.”
You put all that together, and it’s very hard to say this jacket is warm in this range because you also have to factor in the person wearing the jacket, their movement, and their activities, so it’s very hard to say with wool. Same with down, but with down, we can get a little nerdier.
Fill Power and Why It Matters
The most popular measurement that you probably hear is fill power. Fill power is just how much space the down takes up in a standardized container. If one ounce of down takes up 900 cubic inches, it’s 900 fill power.
You can get mega-efficient down with big plumes that are very proud to be around, and you can compress that a lot. It’s warmer for lighter weight, so there are a lot of cool things about it.
However, immediately, a problem is the humidity levels or the moisture levels really affect high-efficiency downs. So I was reading one study where a 1,000-fill power down jacket performed the same as a 750-fill power down jacket in moderate humidity.
We’re already in the weeds and let me tell you, we’re going to get a lot more weeds because that’s how efficient the down is, but you also need to know how much down there is in the jacket. So that’s fill weight, which manufacturers commonly don’t even put on a jacket.
Construction Types: From Sewn-Through to Modern Baffles
And then also finally, how is the jacket constructed? Something we do need to touch on very quickly because we talked about in this last article is down-fill construction types.
The first type of construction is sewn-through construction. We take a pillow, and we sew right down the middle, you get cold spots on either side.
Then we have box construction, which is literally shaped like a cube. So this helps the down because we’re not compressing it on the sides.
There’s also offset baffle construction, which is sewn through construction but done a little differently and done twice and then offset, so you lose those cold pockets, but again, it takes longer to construct.
But also, which we’ll talk about in a second, there are now woven baffles and bonded baffles, which we’ll talk about with the L.L.Bean jacket at the end of the article when we tie in synthetic as well.
The Truth About Down Jackets in the Rain
In every article that I’ve read, every video that I watched, everybody’s like, “Okay, when it’s wet outside, wool is great, it insulates when wet, you’ll be totally fine. Synthetic is also fine, it will dry really fast and be fine. Down sucks, and you’ll die.”
And frankly, I mean, it’s not the best, it’s the worst out of all the three, but I really – we talk about it like if a drop of water hits you, your jacket’s going to explode and you’ll die.
Down clusters collapse when they get wet if they’re not treated with anything. So I understand why you say down is useless in the rain because you’d rather be safe than sorry, but for the most part, unless you’re going on crazy hikes and you have no other water-resistant gear or anything like that, I think you’ll be okay with down, especially with down modern technologies.
Most down jackets now use Nikwax or Down-Tek or something like that. L.L.Bean uses Down-Tek, which is actually the spray that you spray on the outside of jackets; they put that on the down.
Gore-Tex is insane – the idea that someone took something that was waterproof and extended it really fast, and all of a sudden, it was still waterproof, but it let vapor pass through it, so it was more breathable is insane.
Everybody brings up the fact that you know there’s nothing special about Gore-Tex anymore because the patent expired. You can get any other brand, and that’s true, but the one thing that is great about Gore-Tex is they have a crazy warranty and a crazy testing lab. So, with Gore-Tex, you get that guarantee essentially.
The tough part is, though, the original formula of Gore-Tex and what a lot of companies are still using are PFAs. It got banned because it’s not that great for the environment or people, and by not that great, check this out: there’s no acceptable level of PFAs in our water system at all, which that part I’m like, “none? no level?” That can’t be good.
Waterproof membranes will also sometimes delaminate. Some people can have a Gore-Tex membrane or a waterproof membrane for 30 years with no problem, and Gore-Tex does have a great warranty, but sometimes your jacket will bubble and look weird, and sometimes it gets to the point where there’s just nothing you can really do.
You also need to keep applying a DWR finish onto your jacket, which is what you see when water is beading off of jackets.
Otherwise, Gore-Tex, while it will stay waterproof, will wet out and not be breathable, so you lose a little bit of a benefit there. You’re getting a more complex system which is harder to maintain, you have to work harder to maintain it, but it is very convenient outdoors if you do.
Modern Jacket Tech: What’s Actually Worth It
But the reason I’m bringing all this up is that we’re going to go back to just mega simplicity in one second, and that, to me, is the most important thing when you’re trying to get the winter jacket. Modern down jacket technology – is insanely cool.
The stuff that’s happening, aerogel being implemented into jackets – I think eventually winter jackets are going to be foam. I think this is all very old school now, and in 20 years, we’ll just wear foam white Crocs, I think that’s what we’ll be doing.
The reason I’m saying that is because you don’t want to just get caught up and think you need new gear immediately because something else got released, but it is cool to know what the new gear does.
So, I introduce you to the jacket that all of your rich neighbors are wearing – you’ll see little square baffles and stuff like that. Those are really cool – instead of there being these giant sewn-through baffles, there are little boxes and little lines throughout the jacket.
The Wind Challenger Jacket from L.L.Bean and a lot of other brands use a double weave fabric, and usually, double weave is reserved for – you’ll see it on towels where one side is orange, the other side is black. They have their double weave insulation, and they are weaving it together at points and opening it up at certain points and really just little lines they weave it together, and they’re making baffles out of a singular fabric with no stitching, and that’s sick.
Since there’s no stitching, the water’s not coming through. The wind isn’t coming through, and you don’t have to worry about down leaking out really at all, so you can make the fabric stretchy because you have that flexibility there, so the jacket’s even more comfortable.
The Iron Snail Winter Jacket Selection System: How to Choose Your Perfect Jacket
Okay, so let’s go over the winter jacket selection system – how, with all this information, to pick out a winter jacket that you will love. It’s very complex, it’s very rigorous.
The first thing you need to do is see what you have. Do you have a base layer? Do you have a mid-layer? Do you have a down jacket at all?
The second thing I recommend you do is just note what you’re going to use the jacket for. Is it just to get into the car? Are you going to be walking for a very long time? What’s the temperature climate around you? All those factors – does it rain a lot? Is it very windy? So on and so forth.
Next thing you need to do – go for a walk. Walk up and down the street for 1 hour and stop at 30 minutes and see how you feel. Where are you cold? And the second thing to note down is are you too hot? Are you wearing a big jacket and thinking, “I am going to sweat, but I can’t take this jacket off because I am wearing a t-shirt under it?”
Once you have that information, before you go on any websites, I would recommend just picturing the most simple sewn-through lightweight jacket – you possibly can and then build the jacket out. So, do you need a hood? If you need a hood, yes – is this probably not warm enough? Okay, then puff up a little bit.
Break it down into its simplest form and the chances are if you have a good layering system to go with it, you will be far more comfortable when you are out and about. And I feel like most people are going to go with, you know, the North Face McMurdo, you know the ultimate jacket, but there are a lot of benefits to picking out the jacket that works really well for you.
So the Marmot Guides jacket is much better today for me than Outdoor Research, and then even better would be a lighter-weight jacket because I’m hiking. But you can also go the vintage route, and they’re all really great. You can go on eBay and just find crazy stuff – jackets from the ’70s, so cool ski jackets, absolutely wild. So I just feel like that’s a lot of fun.
And transitioning to the last thing that we have to talk about – down is also very heirloom grade because it’s very resistant to compression. It won’t stay compressed if you squish it down and I love that because that is the only reason I don’t really like synthetic.
Once you pick out your jacket, the last thing I’d recommend is if it’s not eBay and not used, check to see their repair policy. I’ve heard some people just bring in whatever to certain locations, and they’ll fix it.
Watch This Review
Goodbye!
Anyway, I hope that was helpful. I hope there is something in there that you found useful and you learned how to stop being cold outside. If you didn’t, sorry for wasting your time. I will see you all next week.
This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here.
The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered.