two responses to article and north korea thoughts

TWO RESPONSES TO THE AMAZING ARTICLE

I just saw a NF Ventrix jacket this weekend at the Mall. I was wondering what the holes were in the inside of the jacket. It was really light and really expensive for what you are getting $220, essentially a thin garment for layering. Outer cover was made of a very thin clearly permeable material. The fiberfill inside it seems to some sort of relatively stiff bonded polyester (like Climashield, but much stiffer, that has vertical cuts in it so that when a user stretches it opens up the holes.) It seems to me somewhat of a gimmick because there seems to be a lot of holes already in the filler, and this thickness seems less than half an inch. This is not a thick bulky jacket. The inside lining is full of small round perforations in the nylon. Clearly the garment is designed for venting and not for rain. I don’t think it would be very warm in real cold weather, too thin. I think you would need a water resistant shell for it if you took it outdoors in either windy or rainy weather.

Loui, Peter

Peter lives in the US and the article showed the jackets available in the UK. I did not know they were available here.

In light of this article, I would like to tell you of my recent experience. Last winter, my son was in Ephraim Utah attending Snow College. They were having a fairly brutal winter and all of his winter gear had been stolen out of his storage unit in Beaver Utah. When I found out about this I sent him some money to buy a coat. He bought one from NF. At Christmas time he came home for the Holidays and didn't bring a coat. Well in Clovis NM there wasn't much need of one, but when he flew back, I sent one of my Wiggy's jackets back with him. He has since moved home and about a week ago, I made a trip with him to Utah and we picked up some of his things from his storage unit. As he picked through his winter cloths to bring back, I notice he grabbed his Wiggy's jacket and left the NF coat. I asked if he wanted his NF coat too and he said no, the Wiggy's jacket was warmer, lighter and more comfortable. I also noticed that the Wiggy's jacket had been well used, and the NF coat showed very little use. Thank you for providing such good cold weather gear.

Monty Mangum

Maybe more people will follow suit. Of course no one will know the new jacket is Wiggy’s since I do not make my customers into billboards with my logo on the outside of my garments.

NORTH KOREA

I have been giving the article that I reprinted from the British online publication lots of thought. Since we now know that the Chinese have been producing product there, my question is for how long? I am sure it is not a recent situation. American companies such as Walmart pushed the Chinese business owners very hard to reduce their prices by as little as one penny (as seen years ago on 60 minutes), so maybe years ago the Chinese business owners built factories in Korea and have for years been producing product there for American companies.

European companies I suspect would not care so long as the prices are lower. Then again would American companies care once they knew they were getting lower pricing, of course not?

As I have reported almost every day when I read the online magazines serving the outdoor industry the lead article has to do with the financial condition of the big named companies, did they make their projections for Wall Street or not. If the Chinese companies get their production in North Korea at a 75percent saving over producing in China they will do it. They will not have any concern over putting Chinese people out of work just like American companies who years ago moved their production out of the USA. All in the name of saving money and increasing profits.

The difference between the USA and China is that the Chinese government does not have a welfare program such as we do. The overall ramifications start to get complicated when you start thinking about it. Our welfare program is out of sight and businesses in the USA can not necessarily compete with it.

I wonder where the North Face garment is made that cost $220.00 which does not perform.