Review: Review: Vulpine Ultralight Quilted Thermal Gilet
For warming up, or warming down, commuting or just plain hanging out and looking good. The gilet absolutely nails it.
Hooray for cold weather, hooray for winter – for when winter comes and brings with it the cold and frosty mornings I can bring out my orange Vulpine Ultralight Thermal Quilted Gilet!
For a decade I have used a North Face down gilet, its kept me warm and toasty through snow, through chilly mornings and saturdays watching the kids playing football. But no more.
A new king is here. It comes in bright, and I mean bright, Dutch Orange – passers-by will comment, but who cares? Not I, because it is so warm and snug, without the bulk of the North Face item.
I’ve been wearing the Vulpine gilet for 10 months now, always wishing it was a little bit colder out to really justify its use, make no mistake, despite the tiny nature of the garment it packs an incredible amount of heat retention – staggeringly so!
It travelled with me as a post-race recovery jacket to Taiwan, and formed part of my kit on the Transcontinental race, where it’s warmth, lightweight and packability came into its own!
This comes from the use of Primaloft Gold grade fill, which I’ve found to be easily comparable with down, but able to dry much quicker. I’ve been wearing shorter jerseys and t-shirts with it due to its warmth. T-shirts? Yes indeed, Vulpine pride themselves on ‘ride and destination’ and the gilet is certainly suitable for destination, either with jeans, trousers or shorts it works sartorially.
Vulpine pride themselves on the details that make the whole come together, and once again this gilet is a great example, every item on it is seemingly ideally placed and purposefully designed.
On the bike it has a longer rear to it, covering up the backside and preventing those troublesome drafts, there’s no draw cord to it, but it’s already snug enough to not need it. And because it’s there for commuting, it has reinforced shoulders to keep the bag straps from wearing a hole in your gilet.
I can only really find 2 downsides to the top, and one isn’t really a downside at all. First-up; it’s warm, like really warm – some may find it’s too warm for riding in during the milder weather. You could unzip it, YKK in case you were wondering, but it’s not as aesthetically pleasing when undone, but of course looks aren’t everything. So when the mercury refuses to rise in the mornings then it’s a jolly good reason to break out the gilet!
The other quibble? It should really have its own little stuff sack, it packs down incredibly small, I find myself almost shoving it into any cranny in my bag and it seems to fit. A stuff sack would be a nice touch I think.
Day to day it has 2 fleece lined pockets to the front, both with zips. A pocket to the rear, in a nod to its cycling heritage, just enough for a small wallet or phone etc. It also has a zipped-up internal chest pocket, hidden so well that it actually took me 3 weeks to find it!
At £119 it’s a bargain – I wear it nearly every single day, either on or off the bike. It’s stylish, practical, lightweight, washes well – and drys quickly. I love it.