Functional jackets in the city
“I don’t go to the office in a diving suit just because I like fish.”
© raisondtre / Adobe Stock
For our columnist Miriam Collée, the bad season is about to begin: that of functional jackets.
I would be really interested to know how many people out there are able to start a fire with stones, build an emergency shelter on Nanga Parbat or find their way through Lofoten without a compass. I guess none of the guys who got spat out of the subway downtown with me this morning were there. Nevertheless, I counted 23 outdoor jackets in my compartment alone. By the time I got to the office, it was 58.
Typical German?
The city is full of arctic foxes, mammoths and wolf paws. Made of soft, hard and active shell, windproof, breathable, water-repellent, with Gore, Power or Sympatex, underarm ventilation and reflectors.
The sky may be cloudless, but hail or heavy rain could unexpectedly set in or a brown bear could come around the corner, so it’s good if the material is abrasion-resistant, the seams are welded and the reflectors warn the bear: Watch out, I’m glowing too in the dark!
We Germans like to be prepared for all dangers. We love to “professionalize everyday life”, as trend researchers call it.
Have you ever seen as many functional jackets in Italy or France as we do? It’s not as if this crazy invention called autumn only exists between Kiel and Rosenheim.
Spring used to be a source of hope: Anoraks gradually disappeared from the streets with the snow. People tentatively slipped their bare feet into their shoes, laced up their trench coats, and anyone who had forgotten to during the dreary winter months suddenly realized that there was something like a waist buried under the layers of down.
But there is one thing that functional jackets definitely don’t do: attractive
But with climate change not only has the snow disappeared, but also the anorak has become a year-round phenomenon: from the transitional jacket to summer down, from Friesennerz to winter parka.
Leisure researchers say that we are a people who like to hike. That is beautiful. But I don’t go to the office in a diving suit just because I like fish.
Why do you need a jacket that is suitable for Pakistan’s Karakorum to pick up children from after-school care or to go to the cinema?
A functional jacket like this may be practical, but what’s the use of a “GORE-TEX Infinium Windstopper” if clothing doesn’t fulfill a really important function: making the person in it a bit more attractive?
And suddenly the shower comes…
“You could put up street signs in the cities,” I say to my colleague, with whom I walk around the corner to the Italian for lunch. “‘From here please no outdoor jackets!’ or ‘Unfortunately we have to stay outside!’ Wouldn’t that be funny?” With momentum I push us through the revolving door outside. “Would be stupid,” she says, pointing up and rummaging around in her rain anorak. A dark cloud hangs right above us.
When we get to the Italian, I’m wet down to my underpants. Gianni, the owner, takes my dripping blazer and shakes his head. “Don’t you Germans have decent jackets?”