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GEAR:30

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

GEAR:30

BLISTER

Snow, Snowboarding, Arts, Skiing, Gear, Outdoors, Design, Bike, Sports, Technology

4.9 • 844 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2020

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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:

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey everybody, welcome back to Gear 30 on the Blister Podcast Network.

0:11.6

I'm Jonathan Ellsworth, and you can check out everything we're doing and reviewing over at blisterreview.com.

0:21.2

Okay, today we are talking about Polar Tech,

0:25.3

which is a very interesting company with a 100-year-old history.

0:30.7

And yet, there's a pretty good chance that you aren't too familiar with them

0:35.3

since Polar Tech makes the textiles and fabrics that a lot of

0:40.1

your favorite outerwear and gloves and apparel are made of, but Polar Tech doesn't make or

0:46.3

sell the end products themselves. So in other words, Polar Tech makes the ingredients that are then used in the end products that we all go by.

0:59.2

And so today, we are going to go deep into talking about ingredients and textiles and fabrics and Polartec's history and what Polar Tech is up to today.

1:12.5

And we're going to do that with our very own Lou Kappa and Michael Katanak,

1:18.6

who is the product design director at Polar Tech.

1:22.9

So yeah, if you are a true gearhead, you are going to love this conversation.

1:29.1

And if you are not yet a full-on gear obsessive, but you'd like to better understand what

1:36.4

waterproof means and when you should and when you shouldn't worry about a 10K or a 20K rating on the jacket or pants you're thinking of buying,

1:47.6

well then you too ought to listen to this conversation.

1:52.4

Now, to be clear, and as I just said above, we really do get into the weeds a good bit in this conversation.

2:00.2

And so I strongly encourage you to

2:02.6

check out the show notes that we have to this episode where we have listed a number of

2:08.3

very relevant terms and definitions that I suspect like 99% of you listening to this

2:15.0

will want to check out. And we include things like CFM and what that

2:20.7

means. And we explain out a bit things like hydrostatic head, what that is and how it works.

2:27.9

So seriously, check out the show notes to this episode on our website. And we'll include a link to the website page in the show

...

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