66North Kria Neoshell (2020)

As they say in Iceland: “Bring a jacket.”

66North Kria Neoshell Jacket (2020)

Type: Shell / Use: Lifestyle / Face: Nylon / Insulation: n/a

Technologies: Polartec Neoshell

Here are two true statements.

1) What the average person wears day-to-day hasn’t really changed in 50 years.

2) Each decade between now and 1970 is associated with its own distinct style.

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Like begonias in spring, fashion’s annual spurt of recursion is some ineffectual trend report declaring that “vintage is in.” Discounting the fact that vintage is a loaded term (is it something that happened between your birth and “history”?), pointing to a modern garment and calling it “vintage” is just colorless.

Western civilization has been dressing in jeans, crewnecks, and high-top sneakers since V-J Day. With vintage perpetually in, a small pool of archetypal garments have digested a decades-long Katamari that makes both everything short of a Dune stillsuit, technically, “vintage-inspired.”

It’s just boring, damnit.

To me, most vintage/throwback/retro garments have all the conceit of a Disney Vault remaster. What, this is special because it’s old? Because it’s been remade and is now more expensive? In my opinion, a much more interesting way to make the past not even past is just one degree left. Grab an era-specific trait - color, silhouette, print, doesn’t matter. Rip its guts out. Then build it for (loaded term alert) modernity.

Renovation, not revival, is the key to tapping the rich veins of history. Otherwise, it’s pantomime - a Sisyphean rerun, Mick Jagger’s ghoulish present lip-syncing through a stadium tour. To make a tweet from a thinkpiece: simping reproduced archives is the fashion equivalent of a 4th grader bringing his dad’s Pink Floyd CD’s to show and tell. It’s a flattery of the past and a betrayal of the present, showing nothing but sycophancy towards what’s been done before.

That’s why I like this jacket. It’s not that.

The 66North Kria Neoshell is a throwback-inspired lifestyle piece with a unique construction and a whole lot to love. For an outdoors-adjacent shell, it is uncommonly beautiful and priced as larceny. For a premium fashion jacket, it’s as substantial as it is stylish. And for a modernization, the suffix “-inspired” is actually honest.

But enough about my elementary school bullying. Let’s get into the details.

As the name implies, the 66North Kria Neoshell is made of Neoshell. Polartec’s Neoshell is a breathable, waterproof membrane fabric that can be thought of as the aerobic athlete’s GORE-TEX. Neoshell’s “electrospun” construction makes the membrane air-permeable, leading to a much higher throughput of gases (air; water vapor) than the conventional microporous ePTFE.

If this sounds similar to The North Face’s FUTURELIGHT, it is. Neoshell just got there first.

Here, the tech is assisted by a pliable nylon face fabric and a DWR coating. And that’s about it for the Kria from a technical perspective. In so many ways, it’s a baggy, 90s outdoors shell now made from a 2010s textile. Zippers are uncoated. Pockets go one way. This is a raincoat, using waterproof fabric to keep off rain.

(On a related note: this, dear reader, is quality journalism.)

What takes this otherwise standard shell from fabric-swapped revival (boo!) to remarkable renovation (fuck yeah) is how that 2010s textile gets into place. Every panel on the Kria Neoshell is made from leftover fabric. These surplus swatches are cut to size and then sewn into a single contiguous garment, theoretically lowering the jacket’s environmental footprint (compared to making an identical unit from new fabrics).

66North is not the first brand to do this—The North Face and Patagonia boast robust upcycling programs, and by and large, the non-performance side of fashion has latched onto the practice as a highly visible way for customers to show their values. What makes the Kria Neoshell special is that, despite its Frankenstein formulation, it’s certified waterproof to the industry benchmark 10,000mm. The precision stitches and yards of seam tapes it takes to get capital-P Proof just aren’t part of most upcycling projects. Yet, here they are.

Style-wise, the Kria Neoshell is an archetypal ‘90s coat as remembered in the present.

The bulk of the design does in truth channel 66North’s original 1991 Kria jacket (think: Iceland’s homegrown TNF Mountain Light), hence the oh-so-retro colorblocking around the yoke. But there is intentional distance from the original in ways that make it just work better for a late-aughts wardrobe. Colors are contemporary, yet offbeat enough to show age. Fit is “unisex,” but straight cut with all the charm of a pre-Arc’teryx GORE coat. The thin membrane fabric and supple nylon face slim the bulk of the O.G. to a wisp, giving it liveliness in motion that’s absent on mesh-backed repro’s like Norrøna’s Outdoors Coat.

The net of these choices is a tech jacket that doesn’t wear like one: a colorblocked casual piece with drape, and allure, and a cool sustainability story to tell your barista. But also, layers of seam tape.

Leaning on the anachronistic charm of big contrast panels and analog adjustments makes it accessible in a way that contemporary matte performance shells just aren’t. But unlike similar jackets from the Phipps’ and Reese’s of the world (no offense meant), there’s legitimate practicality here. The Kria’s Neoshell tech will see you through an hour or two of precipitation without breaking a sweat - far longer than most city rats would be caught out. For those who hike a few times a year, this even makes a good crossover piece for pulling double duty.

Jackets like this are the reason I started Coatchecking. Yes, the Kria Neoshell is explicitly lifestyle-first, but it nails the nebulously-retro outdoor aesthetic that’s so #hot right now while providing a degree of functionality in both the city and the country. It’s stylish. It’s novel. And what can I say? I just like how it wears with black pants and white sneakers.

The only thing I don’t like about the Kria Neoshell is its price tag.

At $450, this would be an easy recommended buy. “Hey city guys who like the outdoors look: grab a Beta SL if you follow @keithtio, grab a Kria if you stan @greater.goods.” But at $600? Man, that’s a tough, tough pill. North Face’s FUTURELIGHT-equipped, unisex Mountain Light retro is $349. Is the Kria worth $100 more? I think so - on sophistication and color scheme alone. Is it worth $250 more? I’m not so sure.

I get that the price may come from the extra labor hours involved in upcycling. Still, it’s the one snag that makes an otherwise must-cop into a wait-and-see. Unless you’re able to mentally categorize the Kria Neoshell as a fashion purchase first (thinkpiece into a tweet: what isn’t?), it’s fucking expensive for a crossover piece from an outdoors brand.

Especially for one that, for better or for worse, is overt enough to be more part-of-rotation statement piece than rotation-killing daily wear.

If 66North establishes itself as an outdoors-ish techwear line a la Veilance, $600 for a versatile urban shell starts to make sense. After all, the Eigen Comp - another sleek, breathable outer layer - is $625. But they’re not there yet. And in the present, paying Summit L5 money for a special edition Mountain Light just doesn’t square.

In summary, the 66North Kria Neoshell is a retro-inspired jacket that treats its inspiration as the first step instead of the last. I love wearing it and wear it often: with denim, with chinos, with nylon trousers and Hoka boots. It needs to be ~25% cheaper to make sense as a mainline product, even one with a special story. But hey, that’s vintage for you.