The North Face Stitchless Fountainhead - Quick Look
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Price:
£320
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Weight: 594g (medium)
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Features Top end
mountain jacket made from Hyvent Alpha fabric using TNF's
fully-welded construction with abrasion-resistant shoulder
and arm panels, lazer-cut zippers, adjustable hood with
peak, Hyvent Alpha stretch panels on upper back, two alpine
pockets, napoleon chest pocket on lefthand side, bicep
pocket, pit-zips wth water-resistant zipper, internal chest
pocket, elbow welds for articulation, adjustable waist, hem
and cuffs.
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What's It For? The Stitchless Fountainhead is a high-end
general mountain jacket, but just as importantly, it's a showcase for
the company's advanced welding technology which eliminates stitching
and the associated holes and is also used in the astonishing
200-gramme DIAD lightweight waterproof jacket.
The Techy Bits As you've probably guessed from the name, the
Stitchless Fountainhead is stitchless. Every seam has been bonded and
welded then taped with thinner 11mm tape to save weight. Overall,
says the company, welded seams can reduce the total weight of a
garment by 10-20 per-cent. The seams are also more compressible,
making the jacket easier to pack down.
The company used the same technology for their DIAD - Done In A
Day - lightweight waterproof with startling results, but in this case
it's more about creating a lightweight, full-on technical jacket
rather than just a lightweight one.
The fabric, the company's own brand HyVent Alpha, is sourced from
one of the world's leading fabric specialists and in tests is
apparently comparable in breathability to Gore's XCR.
How It Works What's nice about the Stitchless Fountainhead is
how it has all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a top-end
technical jacket and still comes in at just under 600 grammes on the
OM digital scales. That means water-resistant zips all round, a full
hood with a semi-stiffened peak - that's stiff by traditional TNF
standards - and heavier duty fabric on the shoulders and forearms
along with neat reinforcement on the hip areas.
It's all extremely neat and tidy as you'd expect from TNF, and
inset stretch panels in the upper back and elbows look great. We
liked the fleece pad on the rear inside of the collar too. Just right
if you have short hair and a sensitive neck...
Cut is classic TNF, which means short and slightly boxy, which
won't appeal to lovers of more traditional British hill jackets, but
it is long enough to give reasonable protection with a slight drop
tail keeping your butt covered.
We also noticed that the jacket does feel softer and sits
comfortably bearing out some of the claims for the stitchless
construction. What else? The hood's generally good, but the peak
isn't quite as stiff as it might be and blows around easily despite
being stiffer than previous peaks from the brand. It's fine for
general use however.
The fabric seems indistringuishable from, say, XCR in use, though
isn't quite as breathable as eVENT, and the pit-zips, with their
double-ended zips opened and closed easily to give venting options.
Simple, neat cuff adjusters were good too. We were less keen on the
waist adjusters, accessed through the front pockets - the way they
were routed on our jacket tended to make fabric ruck up at the front,
but they're really redundant on a short-cut jacket anyway.
One thing worth bearing in mind is that while the main
water-resistant zip is backed up with a flap, the ones on pockets and
pit-zips aren't which means in really wet conditions, they might leak
slightly as the area flexes, though it wasn't a problem when we used
the jacket.
Finally, the stretch panels in the upper back area, don't really
do anything other than look good.
The North Face sometimes gets knocked for being too 'high
street', but in reality the company makes some excellent kit and uses
cutting edge technology to do it. The Stitchless Fountainhead is
actually a very impressive bit of clothing engineering albeit with a
price tag to match.
The peak on the hood is still floppier than we'd like, though
better than before, but otherwise it's a neat, effective jacket for
general mountain use and well worth a pop if you can pick one up end
of line as it's just been phased out.
Know more or want to?
If you'd like to add your own experiences of this
product check out our user review system and post your opinions to
the world. If you have questions you can mail
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Richard Gear or try a posting to our
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