Splendid insulation: a high-tech puffa to warm to

When I spent time in Portland, Oregon, last year to report on how this burgeoning technology hub is inventing the future every bit as much as Silicon Valley, I spoke to tech companies ranging from tiny startups to Intel.

I have to admit, however, that I didn’t go to see Columbia Sportswear on the grounds that I didn’t regard it as a technology business – even though it has been headquartered in Portland since 1938.

But try telling Dr Haskell Beckham, Columbia’s director of apparel innovation, that clothing isn’t technology. “To maximise a shell fabric’s heat retention, we looked closely at low-emissivity windows that rely on a thin layer of metal on the glass,” says Dr Beckham of the unorthodox way the company’s new patent-pending Black Dot fabric will give its Black Dot jackets an insulating layer on the outside as well as on the inside.

I got a chance to try out Black Dot technology just as the weather began to get chilly. Having heard it was the basis of one of the warmest casual jackets ever produced, I was taken aback when a sample of the £315 Dawn Watch model arrived. I was expecting a fat puff pastry of a thing, but it had no more bulk or heft in its plastic wrapper than a thick jumper. My kitchen scales tell me it weighs 746g.

But it is warm. Very warm. Although I didn’t get a chance to try it in icy weather, I can easily believe Dr Beckham’s claim that it has shown exceptional heat absorption and retention in the lab and in frigid climates.

The outer layer of the jacket, the Black Dot bit, has thousands of tiny blobs, each made of aluminium covered with a black, heat-absorbing coating designed to soak up warmth from sunlight, even if it is weak or scattered. The visual effect resembles a shiny black snakeskin.

Inside, the coat looks more like Bacofoil, an enhanced version of an existing Columbia technology that the company calls “3D Thermal Reflective Omni-Heat” and which features tiny pods of vertically oriented fuzzy fibres on top of a reflective material. The three insulating layers add up to heat retention that is quite remarkable, especially given the almost flimsy feel of the coat. A technology to warm to for the winter days ahead. 

Columbia Omni-Heat Black Dot jacket, from £270, columbiasportswear.co.uk

@thefuturecritic