Acronym.

[eidolarr]

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.

 

[CB200]

"Alpha is (last I checked) notorious for its poor durability"

With a woven insulation like Alpha I think there is some advantage for lifespan vs loose fills as it won't settle or clump. A bit surprised to hear that it's notoriously poor as my own experience with Alpha has been positive, up to this point.  

[lopiteaux]

This is why I love this thread.

[upheavel]

Does it really matter if its shitty quality? If someone has the means to drop 2k on a jacket then they will surely have enough to drop another 2k when it breaks. Its not like someone who buys Acronym is calculating the cost per use. 

[lopiteaux]

28 minutes ago, CB200 said:

my own experience with Alpha has been positive, up to this point.  

Can you elaborate? How have you experienced the fabric, which brands, and what have you been using it for?

[lopiteaux]

1 minute ago, upheavel said:

Does it really matter if its shitty quality? If someone has the means to drop 2k on a jacket then they will surely have enough to drop another 2k when it breaks. Its not like someone who buys Acronym is calculating the cost per use. 

Personally I feel it does, because that’s one of the draws, if not USPs. They’ve always been more than a fashion brand. Design is a huge factor, but to me mostly because it’s built on a foundation of usability that thinks outside of the box of “regular” outdoor wear. They’ve made something I didn’t even know I wanted.

Now if that design falls apart after a couple of uses... the appeal is going to diminish, because (imo) the product does not live up to the expectations that are set, and to what we’ve come to expect. If I drop 2 on a jacket, and that jacket starts tearing after 3 months, I’ll hesitate to drop the same on another.

Even though I am not really putting the fabric and design through its paces, I like the fact that I can, and to know that it’s more than “just a jacket”.

I’m not buying a Porsche to do groceries in, after all...

[eidolarr]

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?

[brainerd666]

1 hour ago, upheavel said:

Does it really matter if its shitty quality? If someone has the means to drop 2k on a jacket then they will surely have enough to drop another 2k when it breaks. Its not like someone who buys Acronym is calculating the cost per use. 

Considering how durable all of my ACR has been up to this point, I actually do calculate cost per use, and it’s far more economical thus far than repeatedly buying cheaper ‘throwaway’ garments, not to mention more environmentally sound. I say thus far as I haven’t used anything other than the S/CH/DS, GTpro3/PL, and laminate. If my $800 pair of P10-S’ I bought 2 years back had started to crumble after 6 months, there’s no way I’d have gambled on more gear. But the 2 jackets, bag, 2 shirts, and 3 pairs of pants that are in my current rotation have held up amazingly well from repeated offtimes daily use. I can count the number of days in the last couple years that I’ve worn a pair pants that weren’t P10’s. I haven’t babied any of my gear in any way shape or form. If the durability/usuabilty factor diminishes in favor of strictly style based/architectural pieces, I’m out. 

[upheavel]

49 minutes ago, brainerd666 said:

Considering how durable all of my ACR has been up to this point, I actually do calculate cost per use, and it’s far more economical thus far than repeatedly buying cheaper ‘throwaway’ garments, not to mention more environmentally sound. I say thus far as I haven’t used anything other than the S/CH/DS, GTpro3/PL, and laminate. If my $800 pair of P10-S’ I bought 2 years back had started to crumble after 6 months, there’s no way I’d have gambled on more gear. But the 2 jackets, bag, 2 shirts, and 3 pairs of pants that are in my current rotation have held up amazingly well from repeated offtimes daily use. I can count the number of days in the last couple years that I’ve worn a pair pants that weren’t P10’s. I haven’t babied any of my gear in any way shape or form. If the durability/usuabilty factor diminishes in favor of strictly style based/architectural pieces, I’m out. 

I'm sorry but this statement is a joke. It's definitely not more economical buying Acronym over some cheaper 'throwaway' garments. There is no way the cost per use is cheaper on a Acronym items over say Patagonia or similar brands. Also, I have 3 pairs of P10's and they start to fade and wear down after less than a years use. I think people need to stop convincing themselves that they are buying ACR for its usability/durability or any other bullshit reason. We are buying it because of the brand and the way it looks. Well, maybe you are buying it for the phone escape shit on the wrist because we all know how useful and practical that is. 

[brainerd666]

18 minutes ago, upheavel said:

I'm sorry but this statement is a joke. It's definitely not more economical buying Acronym over some cheaper 'throwaway' garments. There is no way the cost per use is cheaper on a Acronym items over say Patagonia or similar brands. Also, I have 3 pairs of P10's and they start to fade and wear down after less than a years use. I think people need to stop convincing themselves that they are buying ACR for its usability/durability or any other bullshit reason. We are buying it because of the brand and the way it looks. Well, maybe you are buying it for the phone escape shit on the wrist because we all know how useful and practical that is. 

The last Patagonia jacket I had the liner disintegrated after just literally sitting in my closet for a couple years. Doesn’t mean they all do that of course. Fading and wear is to be expected in heavy use, but before I wore ACR pants I’d get crotch/knee blowouts within 6 months of use on multiple pairs of heavy weight selvedge running 200-300 a piece. I only started wearing them because I was tired of constantly buying Levi’s. Are all the features on ACR good for everyday use? Nah. But the anatomical cut and low key form factors are way above everything else I’ve used. If one were to only wear the average ACR every so often I guarantee you’d get many, many years of use out of it. Are prices getting to the point of making everything I said above irrelevant? Yes. I’ll concede that. But your point that only rich bois buy ACR and don’t care about the durability/usability shows a lack of insight on your part.

Oh-btw, I was simply disagreeing with you in my previous post and trying to start a line of dialogue. At no point did I say that your input was ‘a joke’. Debate is healthy. 

[upheavel]

4 minutes ago, brainerd666 said:

The last Patagonia jacket I had the liner disintegrated after just literally sitting in my closet for a couple years. Doesn’t mean they all do that of course. Fading and wear is to be expected in heavy use, but before I wore ACR pants I’d get crotch/knee blowouts within 6 months of use on multiple pairs of heavy weight selvedge running 200-300 a piece. I only started wearing them because I was tired of constantly buying Levi’s. Are all the features on ACR good for everyday use? Nah. But the anatomical cut and low key form factors are way above everything else I’ve used. If one were to only wear the average ACR every so often I guarantee you’d get many, many years of use out of it. Are prices getting to the point of making everything I said above irrelevant? Yes. I’ll concede that. But your point that only rich bois buy ACR and don’t care about the durability/usability shows a lack of insight on your part.

Oh-btw, I was simply disagreeing with you in my previous post and trying to start a line of dialogue. At no point did I say that your input was ‘a joke’. Debate is healthy. 

I thought the comment was funny which is why I thought it was a joke. Patagonia doesn't cost 200-300 a piece. Even if you had to constantly buy Levis you would need to buy more than 20 pairs to cover one pair of ACR pants. Yes, if you wear ACR every now and then it would last many, many years but so would 20 pairs of levis.  Which is why your argument of it being more economical made no sense to me. They do care about durability but it is heavily outweighed by the other reasons they are buying the item. Like I said, you are mostly buying it because it looks good and the brand. If you people buying ACR really cared about durability/usability that much they would be purchasing arc'teryx that has a lifetime warranty. 

[brainerd666]

30 minutes ago, upheavel said:

I thought the comment was funny which is why I thought it was a joke. Patagonia doesn't cost 200-300 a piece. Even if you had to constantly buy Levis you would need to buy more than 20 pairs to cover one pair of ACR pants. Yes, if you wear ACR every now and then it would last many, many years but so would 20 pairs of levis.  Which is why your argument of it being more economical made no sense to me. They do care about durability but it is heavily outweighed by the other reasons they are buying the item. Like I said, you are mostly buying it because it looks good and the brand. If you people buying ACR really cared about durability/usability that much they would be purchasing arc'teryx that has a lifetime warranty. 

‘You people’ is always a great way to back up an argument... I think you’re projecting a bit here. Or are ignorant to the fallacy of presuming you know what others are thinking. I never said it was more economical in general btw- I just factored in the cost per use and environmental effects of trash fashion. And it’s a win-win for me.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the same for others on this forum based on conversations I’ve had with said members/posts I’ve read. I won’t presume as much though because I’m not trying to speak for others in this case. Nor have I been. This forum is still somewhere close to alive due to users sharing their personal experiences which is why I check in daily. I’m sure that some people are only buying ACR for the hype/fashion/perceived social status. Same goes for Arcteryx or any other ‘brand’. The lack of branding on the last few years of ACR was one of my biggest draws to the label. Which is what turned me off so much about this seasons presto drop. The look of ACR is very important to me as well, but only for my own sake. I’m almost 40. I could two shits what anybody else cares about how I dress. I also care about my footprint and consumerism. And yes I’m somewhat privileged enough to be able to have that luxury in my life. But if ACR was simply appearance based and didn’t have functionality/durability I wouldn’t be wearing it. That’s a waste of so many beers.  

Edited October 15, 2018 by brainerd666
Words are hard

[darksadvial]

In other news , anyone know the drop time on Bodega ? Or if any other retailers will drop ? 

 

No one has been advertising and no news from Erolson has been silent

[brainerd666]

Fucking double possstttt

Edited October 14, 2018 by brainerd666

[upheavel]

11 minutes ago, brainerd666 said:

The look of ACR is very important to me as well, but only for my own sake.

Thats all I needed to see. I've owned over 10 ACR jackets and 7 bags and I can tell you that I didn't get many, many years from it. The best example would be the foil bags that everyone has rips and tears on. For all the other stuff I guess we can agree to disagree. 

[brainerd666]

5 minutes ago, upheavel said:

Thats all I needed to see. I've owned over 10 ACR jackets and 7 bags and I can tell you that I didn't get many, many years from it. The best example would be the foil bags that everyone has rips and tears on. For all the other stuff I guess we can agree to disagree. 

Agreed!  (Also- I may have just lucked out with my buys. Time will tell. Cheers)

Edited October 15, 2018 by brainerd666
Kumbayah mutherfuckers

[AvantSol]

Do you climb mountains and fight off titans or something in your acr upheaval? 

[upheavel]

2 minutes ago, AvantSol said:

Do you climb mountains and fight off titans or something in your acr upheaval? 

Yes, I climb mountains. 

[junkie_dolphin]

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.

[nodre]

so juicy.. so refreshing.. all that and not one mention of price hikes, am i dreaming?

[brainerd666]

11 minutes ago, nodre said:

so juicy.. so refreshing.. all that and not one mention of price hikes, am i dreaming?

Meh, lacking context. I retract my previous post. 

Edited October 15, 2018 by brainerd666

[Xu Jianfeng]

11 minutes ago, nodre said:

so juicy.. so refreshing.. all that and not one mention of price hikes, am i dreaming?

Everyone but the GIRL.

 

[dreamboatjustsoul]

the price at hotoveli updated. 

slightly cheaper than bodega. 

[lopiteaux]

6 minutes ago, dreamboatjustsoul said:

the price at hotoveli updated. 

slightly cheaper than bodega. 

Link?

[nathan wu]

Guys, this new j1a will probably be valued at $2,500?

[darksadvial]

1 hour ago, lopiteaux said:

Link?

It's in the hotoveli drop box folder 

Not too sure if any other retailers will release this Weds

I'm hoping Haven drops too so us Canucks can avoid American duties 

 

[SuE]

7 hours ago, junkie_dolphin said:

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...

You're exposing some of your own biases here though. You're implying that unless the jacket/pants/bag continues to look new then it's not worth keeping. But if the Pants fade after 6 months, so what? It still functions. If the Foil 3As crumple and rip, so what? You patch it! The longevity of a garment is not solely determined by if it gets damaged.

Your line of rhetoric (and these are your words as I don't recall errolson say don't buy a new jacket every year), "spend more on a jacket, get more life out of it" assumes that the most important criticism of fast fashion is that it's disposable and dispensable. However another line of rhetoric you could have drawn from the suggestion that consumption needs to change is 'spend more on a jacket because it fucking costs more to produce'. Customers shouldn't need to justify avoiding fast fashion because they get more functionality out of Acronym. It should be enough that Acronym isn't using exploited workers in Bangladesh and can trace the provenance of their fabrics. 

I'm not saying durability and functionality aren't important factors. But accusing Acronym of hypocrisy is a bit much.

[CARLOOA]

I would quote and quote but whatever. It's interesting what Acronym represents to people. I come from a background of buying a lot of outdoor gear for the purposes of using it for the qualities inherent in the fabric. The most recent seasons have exhibited the Acronym's team newfound proclivity for fabric experimentation and I applaud it.

With regard to Acronym's newfound celebration of wabi-sabi, I think it's pretty interesting that we're going to get these ephemeral pieces that degrade that are also at a relatively absurd pricepoint. Fast-fashion is really just fashion without any consideration other than price arbitrage and cost cutting. It's not about creating a considered product with deliberate design choices outside of financial margins. I don't think durability is a calling card of fashion in general anyway—see haute couture, pretty sure met gala outfits aren't really made to be worn 3 times a week for several years.

I think the new stuff is more akin to technical demonstration marrying high performance fabrics with our beloved Acronym aesthetic. Ferraris aren't daily drivers, nah mean?!

Excited about Polartec Alpha, it is a hi-loft unlined fleece insulation made and used in conjunction with military for highly breathable synthetic (re: usable wet). For what it's worth, I have a years old climbing jacket made from it and it's not been babied like primaloft and it's still functional.

[Kamikaze]

Full drop up 

https://www.hanon-shop.com/blogs/news/acronym-aw18

[kenwiryadi]

20 minutes ago, Kamikaze said:

Full drop up 

https://www.hanon-shop.com/blogs/news/acronym-aw18

saw the new p27h-ds, how is it different from the p27-ds tho? material-wise or anything else?