Alpkit Filoment Hoody 2016 – Performance

It seems like the umpteenth time we’ve said it about a new Alpkit product, but the new Filoment isn’t just a nice down jacket at the price, its a really good, lightweight down hoody, full stop.

The previous version’s multi-width baffles have gone and are replaced with what we’d call ‘midi baffles’. They’re a good compromise between weight and warmth, not too many stitch lines to lose heat and enough volume for the down to do some real lofting.

The cut is spot on. Just neat and fitted without being overly right or overly loose. The detailing is all good: zip-pulls are easy to use, there are two insulated hand-pockets and a useful chest one for your phone or other gubbins. And the hem is adjustable.

The hood fits well enough, but the lack of any sort of drawcord means that your head tends to move inside it rather than with it. Or the other way round. It’s not a big issue, but it can make road crossing ‘interesting’ at times.

How Warm Is Warm?

How warm is it? We’d say medium warm, appreciably warmer than a synthetic jacket of the same weight, but not quite as insulated as a heavier weight down jacket like, for example, the Mountain Equipment Vega which weighs a good 200g more.

We reckon it’s around the right weight and warmth for most lightweight use. We’re carried it on day-walks for stops and overnights for campsite use and it’s been pretty much spot on. It’d do nicely for a Himalayan outing where you carry your own kit as well.

But what about that water resistant down? First, we’d still see it as an insurance policy. It means you don’t gave to fret about getting caught out in a shower or being ambushed by a lawn sprinkler gone rogue.

Duck My Duck Down

That said, as an experiment, after failing to noticeably damp the jacket’s loft during an hour-long walk in the rain, we completely soaked it by dunking it in a bath-full of water along with some synthetic jackets.

The results were actually amazing. The down lost more of its loft when it was damp, though it still retained a surprising amount, but once we’d squeezed out the excess water, the jacket dried out incredibly quickly. In a couple of hours in fact.

Not only that, it retained pretty much all of its original loft. It also dried more quickly than the synthetics we also dunked, which we really weren’t expecting. Bottom line: we were genuinely impressed. We’d not only dunked the jacket, but make a point of properly saturating it, squeezing water into the down then leaving it to sit.

At the very least it means you don’t have to fret about your jacket in a nervous living way. But it also suggests that the latest water-resistant down is getting closer to the point where you can just simply get on with using it full stop.