Maybe you bought them in the '90s after rappers made them popular, or perhaps you inherited a rugged early one from a flying ace. More likely, you picked one up recently, because polar vortex. You might have even splurged on a luxury model, thinking of it as an investment for years to come. (Maybe that was a disaster?)
Around the world, puffy winter coats have conquered cities that occasionally dip below freezing. And while it seems like their uniformity would make them a democratic choice—they're one of the few garments to be favored by hunters and runway models alike—they're increasingly marketed as luxury items, and have become not-so-subtle symbols of class. As a Bloomingdale's VP put it to Racked, in large, cold cities, "your coat is sort of like your car."
What's driving our obsession with fluff-filled outwear, and is their value just puffed up?
 Puffer jacketsJanuary 30, 2019 |
The great (un)equalizer
Maybe you bought them in the '90s after rappers made them popular, or perhaps you inherited a rugged early one from a flying ace. More likely, you picked one up recently, because polar vortex. You might have even splurged on a luxury model, thinking of it as an investment for years to come. (Maybe that was a disaster?)
Around the world, puffy winter coats have conquered cities that occasionally dip below freezing. And while it seems like their uniformity would make them a democratic choice—they're one of the few garments to be favored by hunters and runway models alike—they're increasingly marketed as luxury items, and have become not-so-subtle symbols of class. As a Bloomingdale's VP put it to Racked, in large, cold cities, "your coat is sort of like your car."
What's driving our obsession with fluff-filled outwear, and is their value just puffed up?
Have you tried our new app? You can:
- Follow your favorite thinkers from technology, finance, business, politics, and more
- Keep up with news for you, curated by Quartz editors
- Pick stories that interest you and share your ideas with the community
- Personalize your feed with the topics you love
- Engage with an informed community of leaders, subject matter experts, and curious minds
Now available for iOS and Android.
$3 million: Luxury puffer brand Canada Goose's sales in 2001
$191 million: Canada Goose's sales in 2015
20,000-25,000: Number of feathers on a single actual Canada goose (the bird)
70%: Share of the world's down filling produced in China in 2010
39%: Growth of sales for Italian luxury outerwear brand Moncler in Asia in the first nine months of 2018, driven primarily by puffer jackets
$13,535: Price of The Marble, a Moncler coat made in collaboration with designer Kei Ninomiya, the highest price for a puffy coat we could find
$10,700: Approximate price of a jacket made using the feathers of the eider duck, hand-collected from their nests in Iceland, reportedly made for Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2014
$925: Amount that one writer spent on a counterfeit Canada Goose jacket listed on Amazon
$69.90: Price of Uniqlo's Ultra Light Down Jacket, now available in vending machines found at 10 airports in the US
"The general consensus is that I look as much like an assassin from a science fiction film as I do 'very cosy indeed.'"
—British journalist Mark C. O'Flaherty on his Norma Kamali Sleeping Bag coat
What's inside my puffer?
The original puffy jackets were made primarily of cotton and filled with down, the delicate underfeathers of birds like geese and ducks. Down is still around; it'll arguably still insulate its wearer better than synthetics, though sometimes how it's collected can raise ethical concerns. There are synthetic materials as well, which stay warm better when wet. They have fancy trademarked names, but they're pretty much all made of finely-spun polyester, meant to replicate the way down fibers trap air, which is what creates its insulative layer. Recycled plastic is now making its way into some coats, too.
A coat's puffiness does generally correspond to how warm it'll keep you, but you can get nerdy about it. "Fill power," for instance, is measured by compressing down. Higher-quality down compresses less, so a coat with high fill-power down insulates more with less puffiness and weight. Unless you live very far north and do a lot of backcountry skiing, most experts concur that you don't (usually) need the puffiest of the puffers per se.
A fancy brand name isn't a necessity for keeping warm, either. "It's shocking to see a $1,000 price tag for a jacket when a nice Patagonia jacket is just as functional," Jakob Schiller, an associate editor at Outside Magazine, told Racked. Stephen Regenold of Gear Junkie has said that Canada Goose's $1,550 Snow Mantra is the warmest coat he's ever worn—so warm he was fine in -20°F with just a t-shirt underneath, and too warm for anything but standing around if it's over 10°F. But that made it handy for film crews in cold conditions—the first step towards its conquering of Hollywood.
1937: Famed fashion designer Charles James makes a down-filled puffer coat to be worn with an evening gown. Using quilting techniques on satin, James notes that the design could impede the wearer's movement, so he removes some of the down filling later.
1940: Eddie Bauer patents the first puffer jacket after he almost died of hypothermia in a wet wool coat on a hunting trip in Alaska.
1942: Bauer engineers jackets for the US Air Force. The B-9, along with its matching pants, "could keep aviators warm for up to 3 hours at -70 degrees F, and allow them to float with 25 pounds of gear for up to 24 hours," according to Mental Floss. These WWII jackets are still collectors' items in part because of the hardy cotton they use.
1973: The first "sleeping bag coat" goes on sale, an early milestone in the burgeoning athleisure movement. Its designer, Norma Kamali, created it after the chilly inconvenience of getting out of her sleeping bag to go to the bathroom during a camping trip. Arguably, the coat is even more stylish now than it was then.
1992: Outerwear company The North Face introduces its Nuptse puffer, which takes hold among climbers and rappers alike.
2013: Kate Upton wears a Canada Goose parka on the cover of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, shot in Antarctica.
2016: Fashion designer Demna Gvasalia brings puffer jackets back to the runway, making them his signature garment. He tells the New York Times Magazine: "We deliver puffer jackets in June—and I really don't know people who buy puffer jackets in June, unless they're a fashion victim."
Pop quiz Which '90s music video didn't feature a rapper wearing a puffer? |
Have a friend who would enjoy our Obsession with Puffer jackets?
A fashion divide
Unlike in late 13th century Europe, what we wear isn't as spectacularly reflective of how much money we make. These days, you have to look closer. "Fashion creates competition, and that can be a 'class' competition since the class division in modern society is less obvious and more ambiguous compared to the 19th century," Yuniya Kawamura, a sociology professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, tells Quartz. "Some may want to make the class differences more apparent and obvious, and fashion is often used as a vehicle for that purpose." (Accordingly, as Canada Goose started to take off, production shortages created exclusivity, which increased demand.)
Since they basically all look the same from a distance, puffer fashion culture relies on subtle markers like patches or unique cuts or colors. These details may have first been the most obvious to students, whose never-ending desire to impress one another has involved a display of underfeathers since hip-hop made puffers cool in the '90s—but such finely coded signifiers are also the hallmark of today's minimalist luxury.
In South Korea, where a wide wealth gap has opened in recent decades, a puffy jacket is "more than just a piece of practical cold-weather wear; it's a vital fashion statement that has become a marker of class divide," Kati Chitrakorn writes at Business of Fashion. As a result, the fierce competition over coats has led to bullying and extortion among students there. And in the US, the violence teens once used to get their hands on limited-edition sneakers or leather jackets is now used to grab puffer jackets, Kawamura says. In Washington, DC, teens robbed—and even killed—each other for the Helly Hansen coat of 2012.
It's surprisingly difficult to know if the filling for a puffer jacket is sourced ethically, but some companies are working on changing that. Here's our handy guide to making an informed choice.
Poll Do you have a puffer? |
In yesterday's poll about the liver, 60% of you said "I'm happy if it's happy."
🤔 What did you think of today's email?
Today's email was written by Alexandra Ossola, edited by Jessanne Collins, and produced by Luiz Romero.
No comments:
Post a Comment