Ventura Jacket – Performance

The first thing everyone noticed about the Ventura was the weight. Paramo’s Nikwax Analogy fabric is properly heavy and as a result, the jacket weighed in at a cool 790 grammes.

That means it’s very definitely a ‘wear all day’ option as no-one wants to carry something that heavy and bulky with them. The other downside of the fabric, is that it’s seriously warm. That’s great in sub-zero conditions, where you want to conserve heat, but for the rest of the year, it’s a real disadvantage unless you run properly cold.

Yes, there are pit-zips and you an also use the main zip as a vent thanks to a press-studded storm-flap arrangement, but in milder conditions, it’s just too much for many people. It’s not all bad news, the unconventional fabric has a soft, quiet feel and it breathes really well. It is, for example, a great deep winter option for Scottish mountaineering.

Where the Ventura really fell down though, was the fit. We tried both a size 10 and a size 12, but found an odd imbalance between the top and bottom halves of the jacket. ‘It’s as if’, said one tester, ‘the top is a size 12 and the bottom is a 14’.

The hip section flares out dramatically and even cinched up, there’s a lot of excess fabric. Speaking of which, the hood is also large, fine with a helmet, slightly problematic without and it left a lot of excess cord to flap about when snugged up.

Other minor issues were the lack of obvious big, stand-alone pockets, though you can access storage space through the vents and the quirky Velcro-fastened lefthand chest-pocket opening, which froze-up disconcertingly when exposed to a Scottish winter day.

On the plus side, the jacket’s warmth and space for extra layers was a bonus in the same environment, something we’ve found with Paramo in the past.

Ventura Jacket – Verdict

You might not realise it from reading this review, but we’re big fans of Paramo’s clothing for deep winter use in particular. The men’s version of the Ventura, the Enduro Jacket is one of our top choices for UK winter mountaineering and we like the added warmth and breathable performance of the system.

That said, the Ventura, while it shares the Nikwax Analogy fabric technology and basic premise of other Paramo clothing, has a cut which was problematic for all our testers. They simply found it oddly balanced between top and bottom fit.

There were other quibbles about the hood volume and pocket arrangements, but it was the fit that was a real deal-breaker. We still wouldn’t dismiss Paramo out of hand, there are other women’s-specific jackets in the range, but we’d file the Ventura under ‘more questions than answers’.

More Information

See www.paramo-clothing.com