Seven core insulators to battle winter's bite

By Kent Black

Clay Ellis

IF YOU WERE A devotee of rap-inspired haute couture circa 1996, you probably owned a silver down jacket that placed you in sartorial sync with noted hipsters like Puff Daddy and made you look about as svelte as the late Notorious B.I.G. If, on the other hand, you were a serious fan of the backcountry during this same period, it's a good bet that your down parka was pulling duty as a lint magnet at the back of the gear closet while you allowed yourself to be seduced by yet another "technical" fleece garment. Well, times have changed—again. Although down is no longer a style sensation, insulated apparel is staging something of a comeback among winter athletes. Credit the growing realization that when the mercury bottoms out, fleece just doesn't have the lightweight, compressible loft that down and its synthetic cousins can provide. The resurgence has also been fueled by several recently introduced water-shedding innovations that are considerably more effective at keeping down dry, plus new editions of polyester materials, such as Polarguard 3D and Primaloft PL2, which do a credible job of mimicking down's insulating properties. Together these new systems offer better protection when the weather turns wet. It also doesn't hurt that the parkas we've selected offer smartly-tailored profiles that prevent you from being mistaken for a zeppelin with legs.