Some Ventiles, pt. 3

It is with pride that north-western wünder-cloth Ventile has been a staple here since even before its mid-War Manchester conception. It is with even more pride to introduce a new jacket made with the latest development from their hydrophobic hammock-furnished towers.

In the past 12 months we have seen how some Ventiles are thicker than others, how some Ventiles are grainier than others, and now — now it turns out Ventiles are rip-stoppier than others. You construed that right: what we have here is Ventile Ripstop. It is a world-first which does exactly what it says on the tin. In an homage to what some Ventile aficionados remember from decades back — albeit with forgivably foggy memories — as a ripstop version of Ventile, comes an actual one. And, in a departure from bog-standard ripstop — as well as those woven in the past by the house of Ventile, though not under the Ventile trademark — the grid-like structure here is cotton rather than nylon, and so dyes exactly the same colour as its tightly woven base, and thus, well, looks much nicer. The ripstop structure, it almost but not quite goes completely without saying, prevents an already outdoors-proof material from tearing up if snagged on barbed wire or bramble.

Of course, the ripstop resides on the firm foundations of the most pleasingly simple hydrophobic high-performance cloth around. Ventile doesn’t crumple loudly when worn like synthetic substitutes; doesn’t melt to a puddle when worn beside the campfire; doesn’t leave behind a residue like oiled or waxed alternatives. Ventile is simply the very best cotton yarn woven as densely as the most high-tech cotton-weaving contraptions allow. Even with those little ripstop intervals — necessarily less tightly woven than the rest of the cloth — the cloth scores 700 on the fabled Ventile laboratory Water Column Test.

The colour is black-navy, and the jacket — a tour jacket 4.01, stuffed with features that make cycling a little easier, such as shooting shoulders at the back, an internal shoulder strap, brass eyelets under the armpits, two-way envelope pockets, and ecologically sound padding which functions like feathers, only better — can be found over here right now.