junkie_dolphin

1 hour ago, upheavel said:

I was talking about the main line not Veilance. The same idea applies to Veilance as well, people are buying it for the brand and the way it looks not because of its durability. You could pay 3x less and just get a Beta and it would last just as long as a Veilance shell. The same is true when my wife tries to tell me Channel and LV has "better" leather than Longchamp or Coach. Sure, the quality is slightly better but she is buying Channel and LV because of the brand and the way it looks, not because of the durability and how many pockets it has. 

Horse dead or not, just wanted to weigh in here.

Veilance is, if anything, less durable than mainline. Veilance actually uses older materials, like Tricot-backed Gore-Tex instead of Gore-Tex Pro, or regular old Coreloft over Coreloft Continuous. On top of that, you're not getting anywhere near the same level of articulation, the face fabrics are often less durable (and in some cases less efficient at shedding water, like with the Monitor Down TW from this most recent season). All of this is, I'm sure, justified by saying that these are pieces made for the city, and not for high-output activities... but it's still pretty lame that you're paying twice as much for something that's actually less versatile than a black Beta AR.

1 hour ago, Bigyen said:

Just took my 47a out of the closet for the first time since the spring and I noticed the grid lining is becoming detached from membrane. Is there anything I can do about this? I wear this thing to death every winter. See pictures below.

 

Delamination. This would normally be grounds for replacement, if there was a warranty. Arc has replaced a few of my shells over things like this (the other thing that tends to happen is the face fabric separates from the membrane, causing “bubbles” to form in the Gore-Tex.

The best thing you can do to avoid this is to wash your jackets regularly—if you’re wearing it daily, wash it maybe once a month. Warm water, dryer on medium. Sweat and oils tends to be the cause—you see this happening most often around the back of the neck, the upper back, the mouth, and the armpits.

7 hours ago, eidolarr said:

It's totally fair to be critical of Acronym using fabrics that damage easily, since their whole vibe is about function and mobility and durability. But when you say "fast fashion" you're comparing them to companies that are filling up landfills with shitty throwaway clothing, which is unfair imo.

Fast fashion is about huge volume, low prices, low quality. Even the fragile Acronym pieces like the foil bags depreciate little and often make their way through three owners before being retired. And obviously Acronym is not high volume low price there's tons of well-made-but-not-durable clothing in menswear and high fashion all around, but you wouldn't compare that to Zara.

 

I'm not saying ACR is fast fashion; I'm saying Errolson is often openly critical of fast fashion. That criticality often comes with the suggestion, explicit or implicit, that the mentality regarding consumption needs to change. That's all well and good—spend more on a jacket, get more life out of it, don't buy a new one every year, etc. But recent releases—especially the foil 3As—have made me question just how sincere that line of rhetoric is. You're telling me no one in the whole ACR crew noticed the shortcomings of that material? They could just made the damn bags out of Cordura, and they would last decades...

5 hours ago, eidolarr said:

Quality is not durability, and tbh i'm fine with Acronym doing a comparatively fragile piece in an experimental fabric now and then. It's not like they are switching everything to be polartec alpha, he's still releasing a heavy goretex jacket and xpac bags.

1. source on polartec alpha not being durable?
2. I'm not clear on how that white jacket could be polartec alpha, are you sure? It looks like alpha is a fleece kind of fabric, which is not the texture I'm seeing in the promo pics? At the very least it doesn't look like alpha is the outward facing layer which should improve durability quite a bit?

We don't know for sure. Not sure what the initial source was on it being Polartec Alpha. However, look at this image, and compare it to the "honeycomb" shadows behind the ripstop fabric face on the jacket. I realize this is a lot of speculation about a jacket we'll have clear data on in a few days, but I'm just trying to be transparent about my thinking.

As for the word on durability... I can't give you any explicit citations (which would require breaking NDA on research done in-house), but we're seeing a lot of studios move away from it pretty rapidly.

On 2018-10-12 at 4:00 PM, RapGameTaylorSwift said:

The PX fabric is Polartec Alpha. 

This sounds about right, especially when you look at the honeycomb shadows on the fabric in the product shots (not the fabric close-up, but the rest).

I realize we're well past the point where it even means anything to say something like this, but it's insane that anyone is charging that much for a Polartec Alpha jacket. Alpha is (last I checked) notorious for its poor durability—which is one of the reasons we're seeing Arc'teryx switch to Octa on all the jackets that used to use Alpha. Errolson is always tweeting about how we need a "total change in mentality" regarding the way we consume clothing, that we should reject "fast fashion," and so on... but my dude, you're selling a jacket that will not last very long.

It seems we're far from the days of "Lightest, Fastest, Deafest, Baddest..." I shudder to think how heavy the J47TS-GT is going to be.

Every year my income goes up. Every year Acronym prices go up. Always just a little out of reach.

All I want is an interops jacket... 

So who wants to let us know what we're dealing with, price-wise, some some of these incoming shells? Is it like this past season? Worse? Better?

7 hours ago, rogerhuangxj said:

You are right, actually sometimes I prefer made in China cause the quality is guaranteed. maybe not top notch but good enough most of the time.

But my point is that Arc’teryx set the price too high in China since the beginning, both mainline and veilance.

They need to embrace globalization and do something about it, cause the majority of consumers who can afford Arc’teryx are not stupid. We just buy from foreign retailers.

Why pay 1000 usd for a Mionn IS when you can pay just 585 usd? And I can’t remember the last time I saw Arc’teryx on sale in China, if it ever goes on sale here. I believe somehow they decided to make it more of a luxury brand than outdoor brand on Chinese market.

My mistake, I misunderstood your initial post! Yes, prices over there are insane. Not sure why that is at all... A number of Arc'teryx designers have spoken out about this—it does seem like in Asia, Arc'teryx is positioned alongside LV or something. Very strange.

3 hours ago, rogerhuangxj said:

While veilance moving production to China, they still trying to charge twice as much in China. Thinking we’re dumb or what?!

smh

The costs on their end are so similar either way that it doesn't make sense to adjust the retail price. The major reason to move manufacturing out of Canada is volume, not cost; Arc One (Arc'teryx Canadian factory) simply doesn't have enough staff to manufacture pieces at the volume that Veilance is now reaching for. It's very hard to find people with the right skillset to make this stuff; China, on the other hard, is full of factories with highly skilled workers that are happy to produce these garments at a larger scale.

It's not longer that cheap to manufacture in China; you'll note that many mainline Arc'teryx garments are now made in other countries—Myanmar, for example.

The Gore-Tex pieces from Veilance are still manufactured in Canada, but I expect they're looking to switch that over as well.

Double post.

Hmm, this sure sounds like Acronym's marketing strategy...

https://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/the-24-anti-laws-of-marketing

Quote

 

12. Luxury sets the price; price does not set luxury. 

13. Raise your prices as time goes on, in order to increase demand. 

14. Keep raising the average price of the product range.

One of the key principles of the luxury strategy is to keep raising the average price of the brand. This does not mean having one or two alibi products, exceptionally high priced, and created just to launch the buzz: this is a classic PR game. Not a real luxury strategy … Systematically increasing price point is a real challenge, as it goes against all the legitimate habits of company management.

More: luxury customers are educated customers. They are ready to pay more... but for getting much more. So, just increasing price without adding significant value leads to disaster – as ‘luxury brands’ relying purely on Veblen effect have quickly discovered at their expense. You need lots of creativity in the fashion industry to keep on selling at the same price point – but it is the job of the designer. In luxury, you must install the whole the company in the creating value process: luxury value creation does not rely only on the talent of a creator, but on each employee of the company.

Louis Vuitton’s huge success in luxury leather goods is a good example of this management. New products are not introduced to replace an exiting one – they keep their standing – but to add value to the whole range. They are sold at a higher price, but this higher price is always explained and justified in the shop by the sales people. And never by saying “this new product is better or more fashionable than this old one”, but by saying “we have added this new product to our line to bring a new idea.” In fact, the increasing price point is not due to the price increase of existing products – which price stays the same – but to the introduction of new complementary lines. 

15. Do not sell. 

 

Oh, by the way, word is going round that Conroy is gone again.

10 hours ago, Gradient said:

As a midlayer, the mionn would be slightly warmer than the conduit paired with a hard shell? Looking for warmth in -20C

Neither the Mionn IS Jacket nor the Conduit are going to get you down to -20C (I'd know—I run warm, and even I need more than that below, say, -10). Even if you're wearing a shell.

That being said, the Mionn IS is warmer than the Conduit, at least in my experience. Keep in mind that the Conduit's baffles aren't very thick—the jacket is basically a Cerium SL in terms of warmth. The Mionn IS is a total monstrosity as far as warmth goes.

For -20C though, I'd go with a Monitor Down.

How are people finding the PB/FO stuff is holding up? Has it kept you dry? How’s the abrasion resistance? A little dubious on the idea of a shakedry j1a...

Not going to ask for specifics, obviously, but if anyone with subnet access can give me a yes or no answer, that'd be cool—can we expect any non-TS interops jackets this fall? Maybe less expensive than the J47TS-GT? Hard to imagine finding a use for that webbing...

1 hour ago, Brainboy said:

Any insight into what pieces of the collection are made in China instead of Canada?

No way I'm buying the Chinese Veilance at the same price... 

“I’ll spend a thousand bucks on a jacket, but god forbid the company I’m buying from should find a way of saving a bit of money on manufacturing.”

I really don’t get this combative attitude that people have towards the companies they’re buying from. You’re saying Veilance should only move to China if it means prices go down for the consumer? Do you think that’s how the world works? You were going to buy the product anyways; quality is the same, if not better; now Veilance makes more money, which means more Veilance in the future. You do like Veilance... right?

wts:

3a-1 olive xpac

Have a look here:

https://www.grailed.com/listings/6081568

Obviously I don’t want to pay Grailed fees, so give me a shout and I’ll give you a sufu deal.

Quick thoughts on the Anneal and the new Graph.

The Anneal fits like a marshmallow, the cuff is weird, and it's really really warm. Also unbelievably light.

The new Graph has the same problem as the Dyadic Hoody: those front pockets sit strangely and make me look like I have a belly. The cut's also wider, and the collar is sort of like the Nemis collar... sort of bacony in the way it ripples...

Not impressed with either.

WTS: 3a-1, olive xpac, barely used.

Asking ~1400 USD.

Posting here for my sufu peeps; would rather sell to you guys than Grailed, so hit me up.

Had the chance to handle the Isogon MX today. Fits very much like the regular Isogon, but it’s longer and with maybe a bit more room in the arms, presumably for layering.

The four-way stretch in the material is a welcome change for Veilance, and hopefully a sign of things to come; generally Veilance tends to favour structure over drape, and while the Isogon MX is by no means “drapey,” it certainly tends to hang a little more that other pieces. 

6 hours ago, eyesolation said:

True, just checked earlier page captures and it's actually been there for a while ... not sure why, but my site monitor gave me an alert today pointing that vid out as the change. 

The site monitor I used to use always did stuff like that. Not sure if it’s picking up on actual changes being made somewhere or what.

General question for subnet boys out there—how many (if any) interops jackets  can we look forward to this F/W? S/S has been sadly lacking...

6 hours ago, eyesolation said:

lol E is such a tease .. they just put the ss14 vid back up on the mothership site .. the one that has all the 3A bags .. does that mean we have a bag drop coming?

That went up months ago.

4 hours ago, branespload said:

oh whaaaat. this season?? judging from the fw18 teaser vid i thought both mionns were cut. so hard to make out any detail lol

The old Mionn IS Jacket is in the workbook--but workbooks sometimes lie, so I'm not gonna say for sure one way or another.

But no way the Mionn will stay dead.

8 hours ago, branespload said:

also, RIP the Mionn IS. Not a huge fan of the bomber collar and exposed baffles on the Conduits 

3 hours ago, 1i1i1ii1 said:

really sad about the mionn. easily one of the best jackets veilance has done. i like the conduit quit a bit it will just be a matter of keeping it clean because i’m obviously getting alloy  

It’ll be back. Hooded one too.

In a world where Acronym prices jump every season, Good Guy Veilance keeps prices real. Some highlights from the new stuff:

Conduit LT, ~700CAD

- down midlayer

- 850 fill goose down, with 80 gsm and 40 gsm Coreloft in certain spots for moisture management

- bomber-style collar, like the old Graph Cardigan

Isogon MX, ~700CAD

- hooded softshell, a la Gamma LT Hoody

- Burley Double Weave and Schoeller Dynamic, so four-way stretch throughout

- apparently derived from the regular Isogon, though it looks like it's cut a lot longer

Anneal Down, ~1300CAD

- a short parka with a stormhood; warm af

- Gore Thermium face (that's basically 2L Windstopper bonded to synthetic insulation), with an inner layer of 850 fill goose down, plus 60 gsm Coreloft in the pits probably

- notably not waterproof, but too warm to wear in rainy conditions anyways; depending on the size of the down baffles this could be as warm as (or warmer than) the Node Down

33 minutes ago, the-intern said:

@danii - Why so grumpy? Love or hate the film as film all you want. It's canon now, and bears as much involvement and approval as possible from the creators. Many of my favorite artists and effects legends worked their asses off to the utmost of their ability, friends of mine disappeared for months to dedicate themselves to the production. The outfits for the majority of the film were purchased from local Vancouver fashion shops known and loved among the streetwear community, and supported a number of small businesses in this industry. There's no denying the quality of the garments being discussed here; your comment is ignorant.... even moreso considering your gift for the DIY craft. Don't be so dismissive of things unfamiliar to your point of view. lovelovelove B. I'm with @gantz on this one.

lol dude you're too much. I assumed danii was joking around.