Karrimor Branded Event Waterproof for less than £100

Take a quick look on the Field and Trek website and you will see that as part of its new range Karrimor are doing an "Alpine" Waterproof in Event fabric for less than £100.  To good to be true or not?. Rubbish or a genuine bargain?. 

I hope Jon from OM can get hold of one and give us an honest opinion as to how good it is.  ln the mean time I may pop in a Field and Trek shop next time I am passing and have a look myself. 

This is the link the jacket:

 Karrimor Alpiniste

Interestingly, its subheading is Kawasaki Alpiniste. In Japan there is a range of Karrimor branded products that largely do not appear in the UK; it could be they are made by a company that has licensing rights to the Karrimor brand in Japan only. Sometimes their products get to Field and Trek (which has the licence for the Karrimor brand in the UK). Maybe this jacket is an example of this Japanese Karrimor company.  

> I have had several Karrimor clothing items over the years and they were all good value and durable enough.

That's all fine and dandy, but 'Karrimor' has changed over the last few years; going bankrupt, and having rights to the name being bought by two completely different companies, and having a 'runt' part of the original organisation still left producing products.

So you really have to know just which particular 'Karrimor' entity you're dealing with, and it's not clear.  The fact that there is a Japanese 'Karrimor' (yet another brand name user that I'd never heard of before) only adds to the confusion.

Most of the stuff sold by Ashley's 'Karrimor' (F&T, SportsDirect) is cheap, low quality, generic stuff with a Karrimor branding applied to it.  That F&T are selling what looks to be a fairly decent jacket is unusual, IME.

A very unsatisfactory arrangement for the consumer.

Here's the Karrimor Japan website: http://www.karrimor.jp/index.html

Some pretty good looking stuff on there! To Mike Ashley: stop selling all this substandard 'karrimor' stuff and just sell the Karrimor Japan stuff!

Quite sad that the iconic British Karrimor brand is now served better by a Japanese company who don't even sell in the UK.

Visited my local Sports Direct shop today and they had the Karrimor Event jackets in stock.  The Jacket design is quite short, I assume so that it does not cause problems when using a climbing harness.  It does not fully cover the crotch or bum so not designed for the "fuller coverage" that Walkers may be looking for although if used with overtrousers it would provide total coverage.

The fit was more "relaxed" than some climbing designed jackets I have tried and I would say that the Event fabric is "mid-weight" with the whole jacket being made of the same weight of fabric.  Like a lot of these styles of jacket the water-resist zip is a bit stiff and takes some getting used to.  The pockets are mesh lined rather than a double layer of event fabric which means when open they will act as a venting aid (it has no pit zips).  The hood appears Helmet compatible and the volume is adjustable for non helmet situations.  I would guess that the weight is circa 450 to 500 grams so not ultra light.  No weight is given on the "swing tab".

The other "elite" branded garment I looked at was the Transition Soft Shell  this is a jacket retailing at £39.99.  The fabric is stretch woven, lightweight, no membrane or "backer" fabric and is described as "wind resist" rather than windproof.  I would say the fabric, at first glance, is similar to the lighter weight APEX fabric used in TNF jackets.  Again no weight quoted.

The other garment I looked at was the  X Lite Helium Waterproof/breathable Shell.  It is made out of a 2.5 layer fabric described as Weathertite (the generic named used for all Karrimor waterproof/breathable fabrics).  In feel it looks a bit like the 2.5 layer Hyvent fabric that TNF use.  Some performance figures are quoted on the "swing tag" HH 10,000/MVTR 10,000.  The design is similar to the Event jacket but as it is made of a much lighter fabric the weight is less.  Again no official weight quoted but I would guess circa 350 gms.  The garment is for sale for £59.99.

All two waterproof shells look more suited to Climbing than walking although the cheaper waterproof, the X lite Helium would also be suitable as a "just in case" garment for inclement weather.

All in all the three garments look to be of reasonable quality and offer good value for money at the prices they are on sale for.  They are all available in male and female specific fit.  The performance of the garments/fabrics "on the hill" is the $64,000 question that I cannot answer.   Full details on the Field and Trek or Sports Direct websites (see links given in previous posts.

Had a pair of Karrimor leather KSB boots with eVent lining for about 5 years. Gave them a real hammering in all sorts of conditions before they started to let in water in real boggy stuff on the beacons.

Would defo buy them again if I saw them for the right price. I paid a ridiculous £54  in Blacks because the new lighter ones were coming out and they were trying to shift what was left. Use them for sat morning football duty and walking the dog and they are still fine as long as I dont stand in puddles all morning.

The £10 price reduction on this jacket seems to only apply to the web price my local Sports Direct is still charging the higher price.  If you look at one of my previous post that carried a "mini review" of the garment you will see that I made reference to the "Alpine Cut" of the garment in prticular the length which on me, I'm 5' 7", a large size in the garment came up to above the crotch.  Notwithstanding the quality of the fabric this may be an issue for some people who buy it as a walking jacket even if it suits climbers just fine.

I would therefore suggest that it is tried on for size prior to purchase to see if this causes a problem or not.

i have 3 friends thats bought this jacket as i recomended it as i seen it and have tryed it on.

i have a montane mowhawk jacket and its the same jacket as the karrimor and my montane jacket has been replaced by montane as it was starting to delaminate.but the jacket never let in at any point. this fabric is the same as the montane yet its a third of the price i have compared the two jackets and i would say they are more or less the same build quality. so im going to sell my montane with the tags still attached and but one of these that will do the same job!

With regards to the first link posted about japan... The url means nothing and i'm not sure where that url came from but you can type whatever you like into the url, as long as the product code is on the end...

For example: http://www.fieldandtrek.com/you-can-type-what-you-like-in-here-442050

Takes you to the same place. So it has nothing to do with Kawasaki and Kawasaki was never in the original url.

It's a good jacket though. I'm probably going to get one and layer up.

Ok so this thread caught my eye...so I went into the local store and tried on the new jackets...the lighter ones feel ****. I think they would be incredibly sweaty.

But the event one looks good, feels good etc. Has anybody actually used and bought one yet?

I tried on a Crux event jacket last year and would say the Karrimor one is a better fitting jacket yet with similar cut.

the karriomor event alpinste caught my eye when in store (sports direct) buying some cheap waterproof trousers - like others "event" clothing for less than £100....bargain. only wish I had tried it on but was after work and only went in for the trousers (needed for an mtb ride in the dales last weekend)  very tempted as everyone rates the event textile...it came out after goretex with the aim to beat "goretex" and take a chunk of the market...(read this on the net) defintely will go back and try it on but I want it for mountain biking and by the sounds of it (well done on the review ashley) it maybe too short which means back to bike specific stuff,,,and more money,,,.  as for the prices quoted above it's £99 in store and £89 online + £4.99 postage and poor customer ratings online (my trousers were cheaper online but!) so in store and pay the extra £5...at least I can try it on first.

This jacket is new out this year hence everyone trying to found out more information