PHD Clothing launches its lightest down clothing ever.

by 2

We took a visit to Manchester-based PHD Clothing a couple of years ago. (See the story here) and were very impressed with the completely made in the UK range of jackets and sleeping bags.

PHD has been working on a new and even lighter fabric to pair with its 900 fill down and has now produced a range of jacket, vest, trousers and hut-boots using this 10 denier fabric. It’s so small and compact that it has has to make a new, smaller stuff sack. The vest or the trousers fit into a sack just 8cm x 13cm. That’s the size of a coffee mug.

Only 190g, still with full zip and pockets. £210

Even the jacket fits into a sack just 10 x 18cm and it weighs in at 190g. PHD is pitching the line of jacket, vest, trousers and boots as small enough to always pack and something that you can pull out in the bothy, or to give extra warmth to your minimal sleeping bag (it makes them too). Lighter and smaller than fleeces, you can fit one into the smallest of bike-packing outfits.

You probably won’t see any graphic designers wearing it though, due to the Comic Sans font used in the logo. All the more for us design heathens then, eh?

PHD Wafer trousers are £165.

We’re fans of the made-in-UK brand. It’s comparable in price to some of the big name (but made in China) brands and it’s a truly bespoke company, only making your jacket when you’ve ordered it. There’s usually a small wait for this, but it’s worth it for that level of personal service we reckon.

Wafer vest is 130g and £150.

The fabric is so fine that 9,000m or around six miles of the yarn that makes it weighs 10g. That’s about a pound coin…

Only 45g of indoor-use-only comfort.

And finally, we reckon these £70 hut boots will be the ideal birthday/Christmas gift for the STWer who has everything. They’ll let you argue on the forum in warmth and comfort from the sofa.

Full details are here on the PHD website: http://www.phdesigns.co.uk/waferdowngear.php

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

More posts from Chipps

Comments (2)

Leave Reply