Just got the new Pata catalog plus checked the website and am puzzled. I have been a fan of the company and their gear for a long time, even though I gag on some of the enviro political correctness. Their prices were high, but seemed justified by the quality and the warranty.

Pata has for years (decades?) hyped their proprietary non-Goretex shells. I have been very pleased with my Stretch Ascent. Previous catalogs touted their top shell, the M10, as the greatest shell ever conceived by man, and the reviews I read were highly complimentary. Now comes the new fall line, and the featured shell is a $600(!) piece with - wait for it - Goretex. (Super Alpine) I'm curious how they justify this. I thought Arc Teryx was the only outfit with the gall to ask $600 for a shell, but apparently not. I would love to know how the Super Alpine is worth $200 more than the M10.

Anyone with Pata contacts who can shed some light on this? This is sad. Perhaps inevitable?

Jim

It is probably awesome...but for 600$ I'd rather be a little bit damp/uncomfortable but in a really sweet place! (from ATL you could probably get to SoAmerica for $600!

jthomas wrote:Just got the new Pata catalog plus checked the website and am puzzled. I have been a fan of the company and their gear for a long time, even though I gag on some of the enviro political correctness. Their prices were high, but seemed justified by the quality and the warranty.

Part of the Gore reintro to Patagonia's line is environmental - Gore recently got bluesign certification, basically an independent audit of the environmental impact of textile production throughout the supply chain. Their mission became more in line with Patagonia's, "make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm"...

When you are talking $600 for a shell better to look around, at materials available and the patterns used. Polartec Neoshell is going to be hard to beat. Patagonia has never had the best patterns imo. There is a reason there are pit zips in the Super Alpine and none needed in the Westcomb Apoc made of Neoshell.


http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/2011/05 ... pdate.html

Dane1 wrote:When you are talking $600 for a shell better to look around, at materials available and the patterns used. Polartec Neoshell is going to be hard to beat. Patagonia has never had the best patterns imo. There is a reason there are pit zips in the Super Alpine and none needed in the Westcomb Apoc made of Neoshell.


http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/2011/05 ... pdate.html

Not that I'm going to pay $600 for even a gold-plated jacket, but the link above doesn't show any pictures of the Neoshell jacket in a pouring rain. I also didn't see anything in the write-up about how well the Neoshell does in the rain. Goretex is waterproof, and when the relative humidity on the outside of the jacket is 100%, you're gonna want pit zips period.

Ha..ha...ha....well we can agree on gold plated jackets anyway.

Rain totals to date this year in Seattle are 24 INCHES...actually a good deal more where I live in the Cascade foot hills, usually close to double the Seattle numbers.

Pit zips are required for materials that don't breath well. Neo shell doesn't need pit zips in a well patterned garment. It stretches and it is water PROOF. Goretex is behind the curve from what I have seen so far. Still haven't used the newest version of Goretex though to make a side by side comparison.

But performance in pouring rain?...that is a given in anything I use or write about as a "water proof" shell garment or I don't write about it. Several weather conditions besides a hard rain that will tell you more about how well a garment breathes.

It's not that Gore now has the same philosophy as Patagonia, it's that Gore lifted a bunch of their design restrictions for Patagonia. Why it is $600, I am working on that.

cp59 wrote: Part of the Gore reintro to Patagonia's line is environmental ... Patagonia's, "make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm"...

Meh. More of Chouinard's marketing schtick. An unquantifiable corporate homily.

Patagonia has a long and hypocritical history of:
- using their buying power / sales figures to put their own brand on a generic material. ie. Capilene, then forever marketing it as brand distinction, point-of-difference strategy etc
- bagging Gore-Tex, then using it (briefly in the 90s), then not, now once more all over again, once again talking it up as brand/line superiority over whatever they don't use that year, usually based on money and nothing more
- bagging down, then using it
- chopping good lines completely, or replacing them with inferior lines
- continually changing lines, colors, seasonal updates etc. which is hardly in line with minimal consumption, conservation of resources etc.

Yvon - If it's as good as you say, and lasts as long as you say, and is so much better than what your competitors are making, why did you go and change it all a month after I paid a week's wages for a jacket?

It's marketing, and of course they all do it, and they need to - it's part of business. I have no problem with clever marketing, but don't pretend it's anything else, and spout holier-than-thou airhead banality in the process. Patagonia have a long history of dissing rivals for one thing and then doing the same or worse. As with the aftermath of the Delicate Arch saga, they talked crap for months until overwhelming public pressure forced them to do what they should have done in the beginning.

It is a company that cultivates an image with the trite myths of the dirtbag climber and soul surfer, while charging $600 for a raincoat. Patagonia is a brand manufactured on bullshit.

Arcteryx may be overpriced too, but at least it doesn't look like the jacket design model was a 5ft high potato.

Their proprietary fabrics didn't work nearly as well as Goretex did and does, ever. I tried and returned several of their jackets the last several years, nothing they offered would beat my 16 year old Montbell Goretex jacket for being waterproof (passed) and breathable (failed miserably). They simply conceeded the simple fact that their fabrics don't measure up to today's best.

i dont know anything about fancy fabrics or what costs what.. except that i do know you could have a rain jacket custom cut/tailored for $600. companies have done a very good job making it seem like we use them because they make a superior product- but we all need to remember that THE actual reason we buy mass-production few-sizes-fit-all from these conglomerates is because it's the most cost-effective way to clothe ourselves. once that element is subtracted, there's no reason to wear a "medium" when i could just have something made for an exact fit.

i'll buy patagonia stuff on super sale, because it is good kit.. but some of these companies have lost their damn minds. somebody mentined arcteryx- screw those guys. i wouldnt wear their clothes purely out of principle.