Bending the Paradigm: Polartec’s Approach to “Waterproofness” & Comfort

If you are a true gear head, you are going to love this conversation. And if you aren’t a full-on gear nerd but you’d like to better understand what “waterproof” really means, and when you should and shouldn’t worry about a 10k or 20k rating on the jacket or pants you are thinking of buying, then you also ought to listen to this conversation.

Luke Koppa and I spoke this week with Michael Cattanach, who is the Product Design Director at Polartec. Polartec is a very interesting company with a hundred years of history behind it. But you might not be too familiar with them, since Polartec makes the textiles and fabrics that a lot of your favorite outerwear and apparel are made of, but they don’t make or sell the end products. In other words, Polartec makes the ingredients used to make your favorite apparel. And so today, we’re going to dive deep into the details about ingredients and textiles and fabrics, and Polartec’s history, and what Polartec is up to today.

Now as we said, we do get into the weeds quite a bit in this conversation, so we strongly encourage you to check out the show notes to this episode, where we have listed a number of very relevant terms and definitions.

TOPICS & TIMES:

• History of Polartec (2:48)
• Michael’s background (6:52)
• History of NeoShell (8:44)
• Hydrostatic Head Pressure (14:31)
• MVTR & RET Tests (and see our Show Notes!) (18:34)
• Handfeel (28:53)
• “Electrospun” membranes (31:45)
• Polartec Power Shield Pro vs Neoshell (36:48)
• Being an “ingredient” brand (47:010
• Product control & Polartec’s Apex Awards (51:29)
• Polartec Power Fill, Alpha, & Power Air (59:20)
• Fleece, Microplastics, & Sustainability (1:03:13)
• Polartec.com - see the brands working with Polartec (1:10:32)

RELATED LINKS:

• Show Notes — Important Terms & Definitions
• Our “Outerwear 101” article
• Our “Outerwear 201” article

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