Materials
Every material we build with, and the name of whoever makes it. Two platforms of our own, and a short list of partners we did not want to hide behind a generic label.
A jacket is a stack of decisions: a membrane, a face fabric, an insulation, a zip, a thread. Most of them are made by someone else, and most brands never say who.
We name them, because a name is something you can check. If you want to know how a material behaves, you can go and read what the people who make it have published about it.
BARMA, our membrane platform
Our membrane selection and development platform. Not a single membrane: the programme through which we choose and develop the right one for each garment, with first-tier manufacturing partners. The collection carries two, BARMA Flow and BARMA Storm, both at 20,000 mm of water column tested to UNI EN ISO 811 and an MVTR above 29,000 g/m²/24h tested to ISO 15496. The membranes are ePE and PU, not a fluoropolymer.
OURA, our face fabrics
Our fabric platform: the outer fabrics we make our garments from. OURArift is a nano-waffled ripstop for windproof protection, OURAflo a seersucker construction for high breathability, OURAdots an active cooling construction.
OURA fabrics carry no waterproofness or breathability values, because they carry no membrane. Values exist only where there is one, and that is a definition, not an omission.
PrimaLoft, synthetic insulation
Synthetic insulation that keeps working when it is damp, which is the condition most insulation is actually used in. We use it where down would be the wrong answer: wet cold, high output, layers that get compressed and pulled out all day.
RDS certified down
All the down we use is certified to the Responsible Down Standard, which traces it back through the supply chain and rules out live plucking and force feeding. Fill power and fill weight are listed on each product page, because those two numbers together are what tells you how warm a garment is.
Pertex
A face fabric on insulated garments from earlier production, the Lillaz and the Biancograt. It is not used on shells: there the fabric sits on a BARMA membrane, and the two are different problems.
YKK, zips and hardware
Zips are the part of a shell you operate with cold hands, wearing gloves, usually in a hurry. A zip that fails ends the day, so this is not a place to save money.
RECCO, search reflector
A passive reflector that lets organised rescue teams locate you with a RECCO detector. It needs no battery and never switches on. It is built into our freeride garments, and it is not a substitute for a transceiver, a probe and a shovel.
Challenge Sailcloth, reinforcements
EPLX200, a laminate built for sails, used where crampons and ski edges meet fabric: lower legs, inner cuffs, the places a shell dies first. We put it only where the damage happens, to avoid carrying weight that does nothing. We publish no waterproof rating for it: on our pages only the BARMA membrane carries waterproofness and breathability numbers.
On chemistry
We are specific rather than absolute. No PFAS are intentionally added at any stage we control. Our durable water repellent finish is C0, with no fluorinated chemistry, and our supplier declares the face fabrics free of PFA and PFC. The BARMA membrane is ePE and PU.
What we have not done yet is a total organic fluorine test on the finished laminate. Until we have it, seam tapes and zips stay outside the declaration, and we say so rather than round the claim up.
A finish without fluorinated chemistry wets out sooner than the old one. That is the trade, and we would rather tell you than let you find out on a wet day. Washing a garment when it is dirty, and drying it warm, is what brings the repellency back.
The one with the numbers
Waterproofness and breathability come from the membrane, so they are declared on BARMA and nowhere else.