primaloft honors Wiggy's

A HISTORY LESSON AS WELL AS A COMPLIMENT FROM PRIMALOFT TO WIGGY’S, BUT FIRST A NICE TESTIMONIAL FROM A LONG TIME CUSTOMER

I'll add to it-- just came back from a hike in the mountains here in Korea. It has been chilly all spring and was raining through the night. Got to one of the hilltops at about 440 meters, and it finally began to rain, sleet, and wind kicked in. I had an old Army rain parka which I gave to my hiking partner. I had a thin pertex nylon wind shirt with a hood and I put on your liner jacket. Even though it was pretty wet for some time, I was confident in the insulating layer the liner jacket provided that I wasn't too worried about the wind shirt getting soaked through. Add that the insulation you use doesn't roast me when I start moving- this liner is my go-to insulating layer and I always carry it in my day pack or my vehicle for just such events as today's weather. Without it, I would have risked hypothermia. With it, I was warm and comfortable- even when we were moving.

Another great piece of your gear I won't part with.

All the best

Mark

Kodiak® Takes PrimaLoft® P.U.R.E.(TM) Insulation for a Stroll

Cambridge, Ontario, April 22, 2021 – Kodiak, the 110-year-old Canadian boot brand, is pleased to be the first footwear company to adopt PrimaLoft P.U.R.E. insulation. PrimaLoft P.U.R.E., short for Produced Using Reduced Emissions, is an insulation, made with 100% post-consumer recycled PET plastic, that reduces carbon emissions by at least 48%. Kodiak will be incorporating PrimaLoft P.U.R.E. insulation into four of its Fall 2021 products.

.

“PrimaLoft P.U.R.E. is the perfect solution for us,” said Karen McSorley, Kodiak Senior Brand Manager. “It’s a proven, effective insulation that not only requires significantly less carbon to produce but that is also made with post-consumer recycled materials.”

NOW THE HISTORY LESSON AND COMPLIMENT TO WIGGY’S

I have never heard of this company even though it is 110 years old, but maybe after 110 years they are having some problems, so they have engaged in a partnership with a company that has been peddling a product that has never worked since its inception in the late 1980’s.

In the early 1980’s I believe Albany International located in Albany, N.Y. received two awards from Natick labs to develop and produce a “synthetic alternative to down.” I have a copy of the final report published in 1983/4. My opinion of the report is that it is gibberish. All Natick had to do was go down the road from Albany to Cohoes, N.Y. and visit with Star Textile and Research company (I represented them) who had been for maybe 80 years old at the time and seen that they were and had been making polyester battings by the millions of yards each year. The original “synthetic alternative to down”. They could also have gone into Brooklyn, N.Y. and found several other companies doing the same thing. Then of course there were firms in Pennsylvania, such as Camden Fiber Mills (incorp[orated in 1929) who produced the original continuous filament fiber product trade named Polar Guard, (I represented them as well). At that time there might have been 50 companies making polyester batting and selling them for use in insulated products since they too made a “synthetic alternative to down”.

Albany International made their product using polyester fiber that is maybe 2.5 denier while all of the other companies used 5 or 6 denier fiber. So, Albany was issued a patent based on the use of finer denier fiber. Did it work better, NO, it did not work as well by a long shot! But that did not matter, Natick had spent I believe $700,000.00 so they tried to adopt it for use in the military. The first failure was trying to get it into sleeping bags, never did work. They then went after cold weather parkas.

A solicitation came out for lots of parkas that had to be berry compliant (all components made in America, to include what the components were made from. I learned from the president of the company that made their fiber that the coating on the fiber came from Asia, where I do not recall, but that disqualified their product. When I published this fact they got a court order keeping me from saying anything again until the contract was issued. The army contractors got around the non-berry compliance saying it was necessary something. The parkas went into the field and were a failure. Like the sleeping bags today they the parkas are all made with continuous filament fiber and have been for years.

Albany spun off the division that sold the primaloft some years ago and as I see it their primary method of getting customers is to offer lots of advertising. I know this for fact. I was doing business with a guy named Brian Abrams who owned Adventure Tech. I was making sleeping bags for him, he was the guy who asked me to make what is now the Antarctic bag, anyway he was opening a sewing operation and I told him I would help him get started making the bags himself. A short time later he called and asked me for $15,000.00 in advertising money because that is what Albany was about to and eventually gave him. He told me they did the same with a woman’s business that I had been supplying in New Hampshire I presently do not recall the name. Brian took the money and tried to make sleeping bags, even some for LL Bean. All efforts failed. Notice that what ever is done with the primaloft ends up in failure.

Now let’s talk about footwear. Here is where primaloft company honors Wiggy’s or me personally. My use of Lamilite as an insulation since Herman’s Survivors in the 1990’s has demonstrated how well it works. It is just unfortunate that my position on goretex influenced the company that last made them for me, stopped making them. So, I have chosen to end making boots.

But primaloft always looking for a new outlet for their poor non-functioning product finally found a sucker company to use their product in boots. Karen McSorley has as much knowledge as can fit in a gnat’s butt about insulation. If you go to the website, you will not find temperature guidelines for the boots because they never tested them.

But I acknowledge primaloft company’s recognition that polyester fiber can be used as insulation in footwear. Only they just don’t understand it has to be Lamilite/Climashield continuous filament fiber. This Kodiak company primaloft insulated products will fail just like all other products insulated with primaloft.