Adown(ventile) Skijak

Warmth without overheating. A new approach to down with far less plastic. Made by combining two innovative Italian materials with a British + Swiss classic to radically reduce the amount of plastic in down clothing construction. Thindown + Albini + Ventile means extraordinary quality textiles through and through.

Thindown is the world's first "down fabric", the first down to be available as a roll-good capable of being cut and sewn like fabric, rather than being blown like traditional loose down. Better yet their Thindown Recycled product is a true 100% *post-consumer* recycled product, a rarity in the textile world where recycled almost always means reusing industrial waste. Thindown recycled uses down from used pillows, duvets and jackets to actually extend the lifecycle of these materials. More importantly from Outlier's perspective we realized this new way of approaching down allowed for down garments to be made with non-downproof fabrics allowing us to create a more breathable down material.

Ventile is a legendary fabric created by the British in World War II and in many ways is the absolute pinnacle of cotton used as technical fabric. This high density weave combines yarns are various tensions to create a cloth that is breathable (and thus comfortable) when dry, but that turns highly water resistant when exposed to water. Woven in Switzerland, Supermarine Ventile145 is a lightweight 21 century update to the classic formulation with all the beautiful cotton performance and even less weight.

The British are of course masters of offshoring and when they offshored Ventile, the trademark went to Stotz in Switzerland but it was Albini in Italy that bought up the British mill that produced the WWII era original cloths. Albini is also the mill and spinner truly pushing cotton to its limits even today. Acrispcotton is an extremely light and compact cotton fabric made using only Giza 87, an extra long staple Egyptian cotton of exceptional fineness and brightness, grown under Albini's direct control in the Nile delta. Before developing the Acrispcotton fabric though, Albini first had to develop an extraordinarily fine 120 singles yarn. These yarns are woven together with 100 single yarns to create a "high-definition" fabric that weighs only 90gsm yet is exceptionally soft and durable. More importantly though it is a tight enough weave that when combined with Thindown it minimizes down leakage while allowing for genuine airflow.

Adown(ventile) comes through the synthesis of all three of these fabrics. Supermarine Ventile145 provides a weather resistant but breathable and 100% cotton exterior face fabric. Thindown Recycled 80gsm provides a higher quality of warmth without requiring the use of plastic downproof fabrics. That said it does use a small amount of PET (20% by weight) to stabilize the down so this not a 100% plastic free down, just a down with far less plastic then usual. Acrispcotton provides a soft and light interior while allowing the down to breath. A down with almost no plastic. A warmth without overheating. Adown(ventile).