The nice man from UPS turned up this morning with the first Polartec Power Shield Pro garment we've got our sticky mitts on, a new for this autumn 2010, award-winning North Face Kishtwar Jacket.
Polartec's standard Power Shield has been around for ages, it's a perforated, PU membrane fabric that has a great balance between wind and weather protection - 95% wind proof is the claim - and breathability making it one of our favourite soft shell fabrics, but the new Power Shield Pro is something else again.
The word from Polartec is that it's pretty much waterproof with a hydrostratic head of 5000mm, but also genuinely vapour permeable, so it has better moisture vapour transfer rates - the thing that normally gets called 'breathability' – than competitors.
Blocks 99% of the wind...
The swing tag on our Kishtwar says that it 'blocks 99% of the wind' as well as being 'water repellent', the idea is that the remaining 1% allows air to circulate and thus improves breathability and reduces heat build-up. Interesting stuff and all part of the 'protection versus breathability' nexus at the heart of soft shell, er, or something like that. The membrane, if you want to get technical, is a PU, micro-porous one and remains water repellent for life to a minimum of 3,000mm while .
Outwardly the Kishtwar is a pretty standard looking soft shell in regulation black with neat, contrasting, green zips that you'll either like or not. Fit is nice and close and you get an adjustable hood and two harness-friendly chest pockets plus adjustable hem and cuffs.
The fabric, which is the interesting bit, is thin and stretchy with a backing that looks woven and not unlike the inside of a three-ply waterproof fabric. Weight for our medium test jacket is a real 550 grammes, which is reasonably light. And interestingly, we've already noticed that it doesn't have that instant, slight clamminess that you get with Windstopper garments on a warm day.
The Kishtwar isn't seam sealed, so like Gore Windstopper Soft Shell garments, it will eventually let water in at the joins, but should cope with snow, short bursts of medium rain, light rain, melting ice falls and the like.
Head To Head With Windstopper?
Polartec wouldn't say this directly, but reading between the lines, the obvious rival is Gore's Windstopper Soft Shell and the inference is that the new Power Shield Pro is more breathable while offering similar levels of protection – Windstopper too is effectively waterproof.
That's interesting because we've always found that Windstopper works best in cold, dry, alpine conditions, but struggles in the damper UK environment, though lots of venting makes it more useable.
In other words, Power Shield Pro could offer Windstopper-type protection but with enough extra breathability to cope with higher levels of exertion and/or warmer, more humid conditions, so it may work a whole lot better in the UK. Or then again, it might not.
We'll let you know how we get on. The North Face Kishtwar will be in the shops from this autumn with a serious price tag of around £239. Lowe Alpine also has a jacket made from Power Shield Pro, the, erm, Power Shield Pro Jacket we told you about a few months back, which may be taped or partially taped, we're not quite sure which.
There's more about the new fabric at www.polartec.com and more about the current TNF range at www.thenorthface.com
