Here’s the last part of my Haglöfs Summer 2014 Preview and it’s a monster. I had fully intended to trim this down but what the hell, here it is with all 80 or so photies.
There are some things in here I’m genuinely excited about, some left-field genius and lots to smile at too. And remember, you can’t have it until spring next year.
Above is the Roc Hard Jacket with the Roc High in grey. The Roc High is the Spitz usurper and is still beefy but more of an all-rounder than the Spitz was, different cut, feels longer to me too. Gore-Tex Pro Shell, awesome hood, good pockest, venting and they canned the bright colour for 2014. Can’t have it all. Or can you…
This blue marvel is the Roc Lite Pull and lets not fanny about here, I love this.
375g in Pro Shell with a mountain hood, perfect articulation, good length and a pouch pocket. The pocket zip is slanted to make it easier to pull and the pocket has a 3D bellows-type bag so you can cram stuff in and not pull the front of the smock out of your belt or harness.
I’ve used a lot of shell smocks and it looks like this one has been built from similar experiences to mine as it’s correcting my personal niggles.
Below is the Roc High Q, the girls version. Clean lines and I think I like the monotone better than the blokes version.
Above is the Roca Lite Jacket in a soft stretchy Windstopper. Nice form to it, an all rounder in a fabric that doesn’t scare me anymore.
The nice looking Scoria Pant below comes in Flexable fabric, a non membrane softshell which I know well and have nothing but good words to say about. The zip fly is mountain specific, or something. From experience this format does work, but the zip pull on these needs a garage, it’ll catch on stuff I think.
Lizard Pants and Shorts, his and hers except the orange pants above, they’re the ladies Skarn Pants which are bit fancier with kick patches and reinforced knees.
All good. Colours, yes please.
More Lizards and a close up of the mean’s Skarn Pants. Will anyone stock them?
The Lizard jacket above in the health and safety colourway. The weight of Flexable fabric used in the Lizard range is a genuine do it all, I wear it summer and winter and it wears very well too. My original pre-production Lizard top is still going strong and it gets worn and washed all the time.
I’m getting bored of increasingly baggy outdoor trousers and the Mylonite (sounds like an alien race from a 50’s movie) Pants brought much joy. Slim, fitted, stretchy in Flexable fabric with good pockets and a low profile adjustable waist.
I like these. Hopefully we’re seeing the death of bootcut outdoor pants.
Paclite! Above is the Telis II, an all rounder which is aiming to save the refutation of everyone’s punchbag fabric. Hey, wear less under it and you’ll be fine.
Below is the Astral II in 2-layer Gore-Tex. Comfy and dry to wear, 2-layer deserves better that relegation to dog walking jackets. These three look plenty mountain yes/no?
Aye, Haglöfs are taking on the country life, stalking, farmers’ market punters here with some remarkably tweedy looking Gore-Tex shells.
Left to right we have the Ridge Jacket and two Ares Jackets.
I tried them, the fit is good, the features are usable, will Haglöfs prise folks out of their Barbours?
The Fjell Jacket Corduroy with some of its his and hers siblings in cord and plain Climatic polyester.
Synthetic polyester cord, you got love that. The jacket has a casual fit and look, but technical capabilities. It weighs a ton, but so what. I’m bored of adverts telling me I should be an alpinist.
I hope shops are stocking this stuff.
More casuality with the 75% recycled polyester Zolo and Zolo Q’s above and the Swook and Swook Q’s below. Smooth above and knitted look below, again it’s a mix of street and outdoor. Value for money? I’ve got a couple of upcoming reviews on just that subject.
The above design won the Haglöfs competition to design a new t-shirt. Really. My skull and crossed ice axes never even got a mention.
And yes, the design is someone sticking their middle finger up at you if you squint your eyes.
I like the other designs below. Some levity in there to brighten any over serious outdoor kit box. The tees are are various fabrics, cotton, cotton/poly, recycled poly content etc.
Different to the usual, which is nice.
Just needs a skull that one.
The Ridhe SS Zip Tee is all-polyester so a bit more tech in its appeal. I like this format for summer trekking and it looks good too, not overly mountain man (or wummin).
Like a lot of these tees it has “Lava” in it, an anti-odour treatment developed from volcanic ash minerals. It’s a Bluesign approved product, so it’s environmental cred looks good.
Ridge Q Tees for the gurls and Zuma Q SS Shirts for other gurls. The tees are polyester for quite drying and the shirts have a 60% cotton content for summer cool. I like the colours. Hmmph.
Rugged Crest Shorts, for which if you’re thinking “Rugged Mountain Shorts” you’d be near as dammit.
It’s all there, the mighty pocketing, the arse of destruction and the fabric of doom. The only danger here is you’ll stride out with confidence and forget only half your legs have the legendary protection and act in a fool hardy manner near the jaggy bushes.
Nice.
Maybe even better are the Mid Trail Shorts in techno corduroy. There’s a stretch yoke at the back to add good movement, excellent pockets, good leg length and looks that’ll match a softshell top or a Black Sabbath t-shirt.
Mif Fjell Pants and Mid II Flex’s in the pale grey. Glad to see they’re sorted the leg pockets on the Flex’s.
Below are the nicely detailed Fjell Shorts.
This is the corduroy version of the Mid Trail Pant which comes in regular flavours as well. This is the best one, by far. Outdoor cords, it’s like the old days, I can dress like Tom Weir. Yes!
Gus, give it man, you’ll never make it work. Rugged II Mountain Pants in cosmic pink with man colours below. Orange, oh mama.
There’s new side tensioners like you get on mountain bike shorts, I wonder how they’ll work out?
Just for the girls are the Mid Trail Q Skirts above and the Skorts below. These are rather popular I was surprised to learn. Why should I be surprised? Even at my advanced yearage, women still hold their mysteries for me.
I think these are MId Fjell Q’s below, I liked the detailing and the marled looking fabric.
The Intense collection races ahead (see what I did there) with Gram Jacket, Scramble Jacket and Gram Comp lined up above.
Below are some Scramble LS G Tees and a pair of Ardent mountain bike shorts. The shirts are recycled polyester, Lava treated and have nice thumbloop cuffs.
For the girls above is the Puls II SS Zip Tee and Ardents in pink.
Below is the Intense Zip Top in stretch polyester with Lava treatment. The simplicity of all this kit is like a breath of fresh air. The Intense Tights with them bring back the nice wee stretch thigh pocket that we’ve seen on Haglöfs leggings before. There’s mesh panels on there too, for tights there’s a lot going on.
Below are the Intense II Q Skort with a Puls II Q Tee in pink and a Puls II Zip Tee with Intense Knee Tights. Again, simple, functional and usable. Do we need more than that?
I don’t care if it is this season’s big pre order item Gus, I’m not putting it on for the photies.
Ah, the joy of the return of L.I.M – less Is More. The last round of L.I.M kit got it right, I’m still using it which firmly sticks to fingers up at the notion of light kit being weak.
This yellow fellow is the L.I.M Active Jacket. A 375g mountain shell in Gore-Tex Active. Seams are minimal and cleverly placed for form as you’ll see below, the hood is a real fully adjustable hood, there’s two mesh chest pockets, great articulation. good length in the body and the arms and it bears the new mark of L.I.M on the hangtag – the stripes or yellow, white and orange.
The black version has some subtle colour splashes.
The long running LIM Ultimate Jacket is now the L.I.M III Jacket. Same single pocket full zip format and now using a much improved Paclite fabric. It says here.
Gus doing the neat folding away trick below.
These are L.I.M Versa Jackets. Neat fitting, shaped for being active and made from Paclite at 295g. These feel great when worn and the look is going to mark them out in the crowd. I hope we see these make the shops.
Yes, I am the Irn Bru man.
I remember the days when jackets were long and they kept the rain off your arse. On steep ground you unpopped the bottom couple of buttons and carried on. With the L.I.M Parka, those days are back again.
295g of Paclite, pockets, hood, all as you’d expect, but it’s cut long for trekking. If I was going on the West Highland Way again, this is what I’d be taking.
A brave move making this, I hope it sells. I’ve got a similarly long jacket in for test from another brand and I’ve worn it almost every day for the past three weeks.
L.I.M III Pants, 230g shell pants in Paclite. Paclite is a great pant fabric, especially over softshell, these coild be a good call. The old versions were great.
It’s a bit shell, a bit softshell and the fit is close with great movement. The L.I.M Proof jacket is 230g in Haglöfs own Proof waterproof fabric, Simple, clean and functional design, this fabric has a good bit of stretch to it and is 2.5 layer, you can see the internal printing in the close up below.
Prices are good, I was told them and went “Oh!”, but don’t ask me for details. It’s going toe to toe with OMM’s Kamelieka, how will that go I wonder?
These are going to worth a look, I was enthused.
The L.I.M insulation is another grin inducer. The L.I.M Essens Jacket above is light and packable with 800 fill of ethically sourced down with a size large weight of 185g. I tried on the mens black version when the girls orange wouldn’t fit and the cut is neat giving instant warmth feedback. Match it to a down vest and you’re all-season ready.
The L.I.M Barrier Pro Hoods below have Quadfusion sythetic fill and come in at 205g. All the fabrics here are nylon, so tough for the weight.
Lighter than a 100 weight fleece and a windshirt, something to think about is that.
The grin is maintained by the L.I.M Flex Hood. A 315g Softshell which as you can see below isn’t trimmed to hit that weight, I’m uncompressed and unrestricted using the thumbloops, the hood fits and sits just nice and the own-brand fabric has good stretch to it.
Two mid height chest pockets add to the functionality and if the fabric performs well, it could be a winner.
L.I.M is more of a complete system than it was before and here the Powerdry Hodds and Tops. These will work as base layers or light midlayers and the light hood feels great on, unrestructive and well fitting.
The fabric has a gridded inner face for faster moisture movement and drying, but it also feels warm under a shell. Great fabric and great looking tops.
L.I.M Tee’s and LS Zip Tees in Lava treated recycled polyester. The fabric is silky feeling and the the colours bring me joy, even if the purple is only for the girls. Hey, purple had to come up at some point.
I saved the best for last, the Equator II Cap in Flexable softshell.
Well, I didn’t leave much out. But that’s because there’s a bunch of stuff that had me going Ooh and Aah. The Roc Light Pull looks awesome as do the Mylonite Pants. Seeing corduroy presented as genuine outdoor fabric brings me joy, plus it just looks and feels good on. The whole L.I.M range had me grinning as I tried every bit of it on.
How much will we see in the stores? Who knows, times are hard which makes us careful and store buyers scared, none of which makes for racks of inspiration in-store when the new season comes around.
At least looking above is window shopping at its safest, you can look as much but you just can’t buy even if you wanted to. And you can make up your own prices too, because I’ve no idea what they are.
There are so many pieces that I *want* (need) here. I love and hate these posts. When do we see these in the shops.
Those cord trousers will be mine. And the purple cap. And a powderdry hoody. And the Mylonite trousers. And some of those Ts. And so much moreeeee….
I WANT ONE!!!……….. of EVERYTHING!!…
It’s worse when you’re tried it on and then seen in packed in boxes to get sent back to Sweden to get burnt. Or whatever they do with samples these days.
you need to go in wearing a caftan, no one will notice the twelve layers of haglofs you are wearing underneath when you leave…
Things like do come to mind on showroom visits :o)
Cotswold seem to get an awful lot of Haglofs nowadays.
A lot of it has 7+ day delivery so I presume it is ordered in as required from Haglofs Central.
I enquired about something in a shop a while back and they said that they could order in anything from the web site and if I didn’t like it they would put it in the shop for sale.
Even if they don’t always do this you’ve always got the 14 day distance selling legislation that allows you to return the item if you order it directly
It’s not a bad deal that, there’s stuff from all the brands we’d love to see and never will.
The stores want to make sales and make customers love them so they come back again, so a wee bit of imagination and effort like the Cotswold scheme is going to go a long way.
If it works…
It always makes me wonder what happens to the samples.
Vango seem to sell all of their catalogue photo products on ebay which I think is a great idea – all of their stuff which doesn’t make it to market ends up being available for a decent price! Polycotton tents and glamping down bags were on there last week.
I’ll have to find a way to get myself invited to a Haglofs trying on session some time…I think I could have squeezed into that orange LIM Essens Q jacket!
I’ve often been caught squeezing into size 10 ladies kit in a showroom because I liked the colour…
Are you referring to the skirts in the photos above?
Nah, can’t get my fat arse into those :o)
Oooh, there’s some nice stuff there! I think I REALLY ”need” one of those Roc Lite Pulls, I like a nice smock, me. I’ve had an Endo Pull for some little while now and, while I’m fond of it, I still have issues with the ‘thumb loop’ style cuffs as they limit which gloves you can wear with it. Under-cuff gloves bulkier than liners are out so I have to be sure I’ve got the right ones with me!
Back to the Roc Lite – nice colour, and I like the contrast zip too. Better (more conventional) cuffs than the Endo and a pocket where it needs to be to be of any use when wearing a backpack. I have NEVER had a jacket that I could use hip pockets on when wearing a pack – even if I can open the zips when the hip-belt is fastened it’s no use putting anything in them because when I take the pack off it all falls down and needs removing and then replacing again after putting the pack back on. If I don’t do this whatever’s in there gets trapped beneath the hip-belt. THIS IS VERY ANNOYING! For this reason alone I don’t mind, and in fact prefer, tops and jackets without hip pockets, though ‘Napoleons’ are acceptable, as a compromise!
Aye, I’m with you on the Roc Lite. It could be the best shell I’ve seen in years.
That’s the only colour they’re making in too, so you’re in luck!
If I was designing a shell top for myself, THAT’s what it would look like, so it really is just what I’m after. I don’t imagine it’ll be cheap so I’d better start saving up for one now! The fit I suppose must be similar to the Endo, which I (unusually) needed to size up to a Medium in, rather than my usual Small. I tend more and more to go for Scandinavian gear these days as I have long arms and legs for my height – 5’8” but a ‘wingspan’ of 6′ 1”(!), and I need a leg inseam of 33” to be of any use practically.
It’s a wee bit more relaxed than the Endo pull, not loose or baggy in any way, just a little extra, a few mm’s in every dimension if you know what I mean?
The Scandi stuff is excellent, and like you say, realistic in their arm and leg lengths!
That’s useful to know Petesy, I guess I would be fine in my usual Small in that case. It’s time to start putting some pennies in a jar I think!
I’ve berated several UK based brand’s customer support about naff-fitting gear lately – guess I’m just getting more and more curmudgeonly in my old age! Seriously though, gear that’s compromised for the ‘high street’ rather than built for High Street (see what I did there?) really ‘grinds my gears’.
Grind your gears all you like. Times are hard and with the price we’re paying for gear these days I reckon it should be as near perfect as they can get it.
Some nice kit there! Can you tell me what colour ways they will be doing the roc high jacket in this spring then? By saying they have canned the bright colour i assume you mean they arent doing the orange thats currently on the website? alos how do u find the haglofs sizing? i normally take small in all my mountain equipment kit, would it likely be the same for haglofs? appreciate the advice! Luke
Can’t remember about the colours now! When the new season comes in the website will update, which will be any time now I think.
I’m a large 99% of the time in most brands and it’s the same for Haglofs. The only brands I’m medium in are Paramo and some North Face.
I think you’d be okay going for you regluar size, but always try before you buy if you can!
You Know that Roc Lite Pull I like the look of? RRP of £330!… (choking sound), Good grief! Still, shouldn’t be surprised I suppose, it IS a Haglofs item after all!
And it is rather nice…!
Gore-Tex prices have now made jacket buying a much more thoughtful business, you can’t afford to get it wrong.
Top quality down kit prices are even scarier though.
I’ve just splashed out on a Boa soft shell hooded jacket. I don’t know if it’s new this season but I’ve not seen it before. It’s VERY nice, and already a favourite after only a few days of use. The (slim-ish) fit is lovely – not too long in the body, long enough (praise be!) in the arms and a ‘made to measure’ match with my Endo Pull. I rather fancy the LIM power stretch mid-layer to go with it (over a 150 weight wool base layer) as a versatile all year round combo. The Boa’s hood is a non-peaked affair, but has a volume adjuster and a face draw-cord…very useful in conjunction with a shell.
I seem to be gradually acquiring a bit of a Haglofs habit! I think they’re making some lovely stuff.
The Boa is a nice bit of kit – good call!
I’ve got a first generation LIM powerstretch top from a few years ago, and a soon as I’ve slimmed down again I’ll wear it in public :o)
The Boa has replaced an accidentally destroyed (don’t ask!) Rab Vapour-Rise Alpine and I think I prefer it’s simplicity to the Rab’s ‘all in one’ approach. I’m finding it more comfortable to wear all day too. The LIM powerstretch should, if the Boa and my Endo Pull are anything to go by, be a good fit and not too bulky or heavy, which I really don’t need as I run a bit ‘warm’ as a rule. Rab’s AL top is a possibility too but their sizing is all over the place so I’d need to try before buying!
Sizing consistency is the secret these days, so many purchasing is done online that if a brand gets their range integrated to point that customers feel confident in splashing out with out trying-on, they’ve won.
I think that’s the way forward for outdoor clothing. As gear starts to get more expensive again after a relative hiatus in price increases lasting some years potential purchasers want the reassurance of less hassle when ordering online and fewer ‘failures’, i.e. – stuff that turns out to be a ‘dead end’ in terms of how it fits in with an established or evolving gear system.
Brands with relatively small ranges like Haglofs may benefit particularly from this approach as there is the potential to have customers buying integrated, interchangeable clothing sets – outfits essentially, all from one brand’s range, being confident it will all fit and work together if chosen well.
Quality, not quantity and a consistent fit profile – that’s the way!
Sensible words. But are the brands sensible thinkers…
Hmmm… Good question! Some brands have simply huge product ranges, often covering the same ground several times over using various fabrics in almost identical products to achieve a pricing structure rather than a truly end-use orientated line up. With an increasing amount of stuff on the market and so much of it now only being available on-line as shops find it impossible to find the floor space to actually display it, wouldn’t it seem ‘sensible’ for manufacturers to go for consistency in sizing and fit?
At the risk of looking like a ‘sponsored athlete’ I’m all for not wearing too many different logos and instead trying to achieve a less complicated and cluttered gear cupboard with an integrated, for want of a better word – style. Like most people I’ve got far too much outdoor kit that I don’t use because it either doesn’t fit that well or just isn’t very good!
That’s what annoys me, gear targeting a market spot rather than an activity or a specific user. The big brands are so fat that they need the money in now just to survive.
But, they all started as enthusiast driven small enterprises before the quest for growth brought expansion and then usually purchase of the brand by someone else who sees profit.
It’s a shame, but there’s still innovation and real enthusiasm in the brands, I think harder times have made them think hard about where they’re going.