It's brown, it's stretchy and it incorporates bamboo in its fabric.
Sprayway Mori Jacket -
Tested
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Price:
£80
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Weight: 450
grammes (medium)
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Features:
Soft shell jacket made from 64% Nylon, 22% Polyester Bamboo Carbon, 14%
Elastane. Micro velour-lined collar, twin hand pockets, one external
chest pocket, one Velcro-fastened inside pocket, full-length zip,
shockcord adjustable hem.
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What's It
For?
It's a bit of an end of season test here, but we've decided to
run it anyway as it's the first bamboo carbon garment we've reviewed
and Sprayway has more Mori garments in their range for autumn/winter
2008.
The Mori soft shell is a woven soft shell designed to offer a
combination of wind and water resistance with extra stretch. The
carbonised bamboo element to the fabric is claimed to be high wicking,
quick drying and be naturally anti-fungal and anti-bacterial as well as
having temperature control properties.
The Techy
Bits
Bamboo's been a bit of buzz-word or maybe buzz-fabric this year with
all sorts of claims being made for it. The way it works is that bamboo
is snatched straight from baby pandas then carbonised in a kiln and
ground into a fine powder, which is in turn blended with a polymer to
form fibres which are then knitted into a fabric.
The bamboo's naturally porous nature is claimed to improve moisture
handling and to trap odour-causing molecules so they can decompose
happily without causing a stink. And because the carbon is part of the
fabric fibres, the effect is permanent. It's also claimed to be good
for temperature management, cool in summer, warm in the cold...
What it isn't, is shredded bamboo made into a jacket, though bamboo
fibre does exist
How It
Performed
As you're probably noticed, we've had a particularly rotten summer and
a lot of days where you wanted more than a baselayer, but less than a
full-on shell. Highly breathable woven soft shells like the Mori work
well in these conditions and we found ourselves using it a lot, partly
- to be honest - because of the smart looks and unusual brown colour.
You can't wear black all the time...
The fabric itself has an interesting cool feel to it and a fair amount
of stretch thanks to the Elastane - Lycra - component of the material.
It's wind resistant enough to take the edge off windy days and the
factory DWR shrugs off light showers. It's also breathable enough to
cope with a bit of exertion without frying you.
The design is classically simple with a bit of a drop-tail,
Velcro-cuffed sleeves that roll up for ventilation and roomy hand
warmer pockets that just about clear a pack belt, though they could be
higher.
As far as the bamboo component goes, bearing in mind that only 22
per-cent of the fabric is the bamboo-polyester, it's quite hard to
tell. Certainly we didn't have any stink issues and wicking seemed as
good as anything else we've tried in the soft shell class. It's a nice
story, in other words, but we're not convinced it has a significant
impact on performance.
Call us cynical, but we're not overly convinced that the
carbonised bamboo particles really add much to the Mori's performance.
Certainly bamboo fibre does seem to have a lot of positive qualities
but in this carbonised form, we honestly couldn't tell whether they
were doing anything or not.
Having said that, as a soft shell, we really like the Mori.
It's comfortable, feels durable, is practical and still looks good with
a decent balance between protection, wicking and breathability. The
external chest pocket is a bit small - it takes a phone well - but
otherwise, there's nothing really to dislike about the jacket and a lot
to like.
Great for those days when you want more protection than a
microfleece but more breathability than a full-on shell.
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 Nicely cut, good balance
between protection and breathability. Not black.
 We're not sure how much
the bamboo contributes. Jury's out for now.
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Performance
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Value
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