UKC

I'm pondering the design pros and cons of baffle design on the shoulder region of down jackets, largely prompted by my recent Wed'ze purchase and some weekend shop browsing...

The Wed'ze jacket has an interesting sleeve design that is a hybrid cap/raglan sleeve, and the baffles run over the shoulder, from front to back, using a raglan shoulder design. When the sleeve reaches the arm, there's a cap sleeve, and standard horizontal baffles. This seems a pretty good design to me, avoiding a seam on the shoulder, and allowing baffles that seem to hold down in place.

Another design commonly used is to have a simple cap sleeve, and shoulder baffles that are simply an extension of the horizontal body baffles, culminating in a seam along the shoulder. This often seems to result in poorly lofted down, and an obvious thin point along the shoulder (where the seam is). This design doesn't seem as good, so I was surprised to see it employed on some very high-end down items at the weekend (no names, no pack drill, but with prices of the order of £300-£375 for gilet to jacket).

Anyone else have any thoughts, or am I just a bit obsessive...?

In reply to captain paranoia: I think you perhaps might be just a little bit, but also right as well.

There are things I'm a bit obsessive about, so I wouldn't worry about it (if you are/were doing). Most people have at least one 'thing'.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Could you put some pictures up, or mention jackets to look at? You've now got me wondering...

In reply to captain paranoia:

Argh. ()

In reply to Timmd:

Oh, I know I'm an outdoor clothing obsessive, and no longer worry about it. I leave that worrying to my friends...

Here's the Decathlon jacket, with a pretty good picture of the shoulder design. You can make out both the raglan part and the cap sleeve. Use the image zoom.

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/warm-ultralight-down-ski-jkt-id_8281847.html

Look almost anywhere for the standard shoulder seam design.

In reply to captain paranoia: I definitely think you're right theoretically having looked, but possibly it's an area of little heat loss, given the shoulders are bony anyway?

I've found Quechua zips to fail after a year and a half or so by the way, I'm not impressed with the zips on Decathlon own brands so far.

In reply to Timmd:


This worried me a little, so I had a look at the zips on my recent Decathlon purchases, and they're all YKK coil zips (mostly 4C family), so about as reliable as the industry produces. Maybe you were unlucky, or maybe they've changed to YKK because of previous problems...