Adown(hardmarine) Vest

A new approach to down made by combining two innovative Italian materials, Acrispcotton and Thindown Recycled, to create a more comfortable and breathable down insulation made with 100% cotton face fabrics. Adown. Available in multiple weights and formulations with Adown(45) being the lightest, Adown(80) a warm midweight and Adown(160) being the warmest.

If you think about the difference between sleeping under a down blanket versus a sleeping bag, Acottondown brings the quiet comfort of a down duvet to a world of loud down jackets built like sleeping bags.

Traditional down jacket construction requires downproof fabric, generally this means nylon or polyester that has been calendarized, a process of melting and pressing the fabric to fill the holes between the yarns. This prevents the down fill from escaping but also prevents air and moisture from escaping, making down jackets prone to overheating and turning into clammy sweatboxes. By using Thindown's innovative down fabric rather than loose down and Albini's extremely compact Acrispcotton poplin instead of nylon or polyester, we are able to create a down that warms without overheating and breathes extremely well to create the driest possible warmth, all without using synthetic downproof fabrics.

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. Adown(45) uses a 45gsm Thindown Recycled batting, Adown(80) a 80gsm batting and Adown(160) used two layers of 80gsm batting. All are made from 20% PET and 80% down (100% of which is recycled).

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.

By combining these two materials the result is a new way to approach down. A drier and more breathable warmth. A post-coital sort of glowing warmth. A warmth without overheating, Outlier Adown().

The secret to the future, they say, is hidden in the past. Supermarine F0 Cotton is a 21st century edit to a nearly forgotten World War II fabric. You can think of it as the pinnacle of cotton technology, extremely breathable, highly water resistant and completely windproof. 100% Cotton fibers woven together in a complex weave that swells up and seals when exposed to water. The result is a beautiful cloth that we think is the best rainy day fabric around.

For decades it’s been obscured from the public, kept alive daily by demand from a few Air Force units, Antarctic explorers and funnily enough, bird watchers; all who have different understandings of its unique properties. Supermarine F0 Cotton stays comfortable under pressure and there is none of that sweaty/clammy feeling you get with GoreTex and other synthetic “waterproof-breathable” fabrics. The dense weave combined with the premium fiber results in a fabric that is simultaneously tough and supple and it breaks in beautifully.

Since it requires a very dense weave of the most expensive extra-long-staple cotton fibers on the market, it never quite broke through to the mainstream and with the advent of GoreTex it faded from the general marketplace. Bird watchers still sought it out since it's significantly quieter than the loud synthetic fabrics that took over, while Antarctic teams prized it for its amazing windproof quality. The main customer of the past few decades however has been various Air Forces who understood just how superior a fabric it is, and are willing to pay for it.

Historically this fabric is an updated version of a fabric the British invented in World War II to keep their pilots alive in the North Sea if they happened to get shot down. It was later used by the British Navy, in Antarctic exploration and by Edmond Hillary during the first ascent of Mount Everest. It was even used to make firehoses and eventually found its way into high-end hiking gear.

We source this version of Supermarine F0 Cotton from Switzerland and it differs from the historical British version in two important ways, it is lighter and it is treated with a premium fluorocarbon-free (F0) durable water resistance (DWR). The water resistance in the historical formulation comes from two factors, the denseness of the weave and the fact that cotton fibers swell up when exposed to moisture. Adding the DWR treatment into the mix results in a significantly superior rain repellant and breathable fabric that far outclasses both the synthetic “waterproof-breathable” fabrics of the world and the heavy, clammy Barbour-style waxed cotton. It looks better, wears better and is dramatically more comfortable.