Craghoppers is one of a relatively small number of brands using eVENT fabrics. We check out their shorter-cut, three-ply eVENTlite jacket.
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Craghoppers Eventlite
Jacket Tested
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Price:
£200
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Weight: 547 grammes (men's
medium.)
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Features:
Three-ply eVENT fabric, Easygrip moulded cuff adjusters,
Fusion streamline construction, lightweight hood with
reinforced peak and Y-adjuster folds away into collar, twin
external hand and stow pockets, 'active cut' with back waist
volume adjustment, hem drawcord with cord tidy system,
single-handed adjustment to all cord pulls. Available in
both men's and women's versions.
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Excellent, highly
breathable fabric.
Mutton dressed as
lamb 'design' doesn't work.
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The Concept Craghoppers is one of the relatively small number
of manufacturers using the excellent and very breathable eVENT
jacket. Most of their eVENT waterproofs are classic two-ply,
longer-cut hill-walking jackets, but the eVENTlite is shorter and
supposedly aimed at faster movers.
Having said that, alongside hill and mountain use the makers on
their web site list 'outdoor leisure, gardening and golf' as
recommended uses, which maybe is a bit of a giveaway...
Features You can't fault Craghoppers for grasping the
technical nettle. Aside from the fabric, which we rate as the best
out there, you get a rollaway wired and stiffened hood,
laminated pocket covers, neat single-handed pulls, double storm flap
on the main zip and, incongruously, strange 'fusion' taping on the
outside of the seams, something they appear to have 'borrowed' from
The North Face.
In Action Sometimes garments are like recipes. You can have
all the best ingredients, but they don't quite come together and the
result is less than the sum of the parts. You're expecting us to say
that the eVENTlite's a bit like that and, in fact, you'd be
right.
For a start, the eVENTlite isn't actually that 'lite' at around
550 grammes. To be fair that would have been light a few years back,
but things have moved on since then. And then there's the cut, which
is just loose and formless, to add insult to injury; the waist half
draw cord sits far too far up the back, just level with the bottom of
the rib cage in fact.
Then there are weird and pointless details - why use a bulky
water-resistant zip on the collar for example, and what exactly does
that fusion stuff achieve?
The hood's a weird shape, but actually provides pretty decent
coverage with a good peak and it moves nicely with your head when
adjusted. Unfortunately it's all spoiled by a bulky area at the top
of the main zip where the combination of a double, stiffened storm
flap, a mahousive press stud and a needlessly large zip pull with a
garage create a stiff. bulky area that pressed painfully against our
chin. Why?
That may sound fussy and to be fair, you can use the eVENTlite as
a general waterproof jacket without major issues, oh, and the cuff
fasteners work okay even if the Velcro strips need to be longer to
avoid abrasion damage to the face fabric... BUT this is a £200
jacket and despite the excellent fabric, we know we could spend less
and get a much better designed and more functional jacket from the
likes of Rab or Montane for example.
The eVENTlite really has a faint tint of being mutton dressed
as lamb. It's a shame as the fabric is excellent and all the
technical ingredients are there, it's just that they don't gel to
create a really good design not helped by some annoying touches like
the bulky zip-top area and the cut.
That may sound very harsh but for £200 we think you're
entitled to expect a very good jacket and while the eVENTlite would
be reasonable at half the price, it simply isn't good enough unless
you view it as a technically-styled jacket rather than a technical
one.
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Performance
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Value
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Pushed for time
Nice ingredients with an excellent eVENT fabric and lots
of technical touches, but sadly the eVENTlite doesn't really
perform with a poor cut and some daft design features.
Unremarkable and not worth £200.
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