Down and Insulated Jackets

Klättermusen Liv Unisex Down Jacket | Review

A retro-styled, super puffy down jacket with some great details and nice eco efforts

Why We Chose It: Very warm, high quality and sustainably made
Price: £350
Weight: 469g

When a jacket costs £350 you’re expecting proper quality and next-level performance. Is that the case with the Klättermusen Liv then? Well fortunately the answer to that is yes. There’s a lot of nice stuff going on here.

As we’ve come to expect from Klättermusen, this is a quality jacket made out of some impressive materials and with loads of nice little details to enhance the overall functionality.

What’s The Klättermusen Liv Unisex Down Jacket Best Suited To?

This is one of those classic all-rounder down jackets, the kind of thing that’ll suit anything from mountaineering and climbing to hiking and backpacking. Basically, it’s made for any pursuit where you want a top notch warmth-to-weight ratio. I personally could see this being the kind of jacket I’d want to take on any of my next long-distance walk.

‘Like wearing your favourite duvet’. Photo: Chris Johnson

The Eco-Credentials

As was the case with the Klättermusen Allgron 2.0, which we reviewed earlier this year, there are some great efforts towards sustainability here. The face fabric, for instance, is made from 100% recycled Polyamide and no nasty eco-hazardous PFCs are present in the durable water repellent coating and impregnation. On top of that, the down is all certified by the Responsible Down Standard and comes with bluesign approval to boot.

Materials and Construction

The 800 fill power down has an impressive amount of loft to it. It gives the jacket a very puffy and cosy feel. It’s 93% goose down – good quality then – with feathers making up the remaining 7%.

Perhaps best of all, and this is where this jacket has a real edge, Klättermusen have gone for a box wall construction. This style of baffle structure tends to make for a much warmer jacket than one with a ‘stitched-through’ method as the chances of warm air escaping through the seams are minimised. The downside with box wall constructed jackets is that they tend to be heavier than ones with stitched through seams but this is by no means a heavy jacket. You’ll find plenty of stitched through jackets that are heavier and still not as warm as this. Basically, to sum up the last two paragraphs, this jacket is like wearing a lovely big duvet.

The jacket has a good resistance to light rain but that resistance has started to wear off with repeated use. I love down jackets that come with Nikwax Hydrophobic treatment and sadly that’s not present here. One area it could’ve been improved perhaps.

The shell is a lightweight 20D polyamide that I’ve found to have very good down proofing. I’ve spotted a couple of breakaway feathers so far but not enough to alarm me. On the shoulders you have a tougher polyamide weave designed to help the jacket cope with the straps of a heavy backpack. This also gives a touch more rain resistance as well.

Details

I really like the fact the down quilting extends beyond the elastic rim on the cuffs. It just helps to lock in a little bit more warmth. The offsetting of the zip on the chin is another nice touch. So too is the two-way, snag-free zip and one-handed hem adjustment.

The handwarmer pockets are comfy, though they’re a bit on the small side and not particularly backpack or harness-friendly. There’s one more pocket on the inside of the jacket that’s quite large, big enough to fit an OS map, and this doubles as a stuff sack (and an excellent camping pillow, I found).

Conclusion

As for the fit, I’m 5 foot 10, fairly slight and usually wear a size medium and I found the medium perhaps a touch on the big side. It’s a little puffy to wear some of my lightweight waterproof jackets I’ve got over but I found my mountaineering shell fitted very comfortably over it.

I suspect most women might want to try one or two sizes down, unless they like their down jackets super puffy and cosy,

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, £350 is a lot to spend on a down jacket, but then you don’t often find them with box wall stitching, excellent technical details and quality sustainable efforts. It also just looks pretty good too to be honest.

More info: klattermusen.com