MIUtec Re:Down - winter jackets rethought

Just in time for the official meteorological start of winter, we present our warmest jacket in our range to date, the MIUtec Re:Down Jacket . A great milestone that kept our team busy for over 2 years until we were finally able to proudly hold this gem in our hands and wear it.

Good things take time

Why did it take so long? Did our Graubünden values push through too strongly and did we take it too patgific , or what was the reason?

On the contrary. It was clear to us from day 1: The MIUtec Re:Down jacket would be our next big lighthouse product after the development of the MIUtec Iso jacket line and the LANA jackets , where we developed our own woven fabric made from 100% Swiss wool and only used natural materials. Anyone who knows us knows that we don't do things by halves when it comes to projects like this.

Novel material development

The special thing about the MIUtec Re:Down jacket is its composition and the challenge that we work with completely new materials. The outer and entire inner fabric is made of a new type of polyamide that biodegrades 10-20x faster than conventional synthetics, but corresponds to the highest fiber quality in outdoor clothing. Of course, we also thought about thermal insulation. We tried with FLWRDWN, but this flower filling also uses strange synthetics and didn't produce the desired fluffy and warming effect. Normal down was also out of the question for us. However, we found a solution: recycled down . The down filling from old jackets and blankets is laboriously cleaned and processed again: the result is twice as expensive as normal down. In return, the usual fluffy feeling and real quality with the application of recyclable principles. We were super happy, but this led to the next problem: the fine down easily migrated through the outer material.

The jacket therefore had to be optimized to be “ down-proof ” to ensure that the fine feathers could not penetrate the fabric. Actually daily routine for our highly specialized production partners. But not in this case, because they were not allowed to resort to their standard solution, where they use so-called standard “down bags” to prevent the migration of the down. Because such down bags are almost exclusively made from polyester and we didn't want to use this in our case. So an alternative solution had to be found. Because what's the point if we use such an innovative outer and inner material and then destroy the entire sustainability character by installing an ordinary, non-degradable polyester in between?

The funny thing is that we could actually have implemented it exactly like that and no one would have noticed it, let alone been interested, because as a brand you don't have to mark or identify such intermediate layers on the product or anywhere else. But for us this was not an acceptable compromise. Strictly in accordance with our credo that we rely on mono-material compositions whenever possible in order to develop the product for the circular economy, the long period of tinkering began. After numerous prototypes and a number of failed attempts, we managed to prevent down migration by having special down bags made from a fine material that is similar to the outer material of the MIUtec Iso jackets. An extremely complex and, above all, expensive undertaking , because compared to conventional down bags, the material alone is around 5 times more expensive . The additional material required and the additional processing technology significantly increased both the development time and the production price.

Uncompromising down to the sewing thread

Of course , attention to detail also applied here. The down elements were not sewn through to avoid cold spots, but rather welded using a special technique, which also results in the jacket's special, beautiful visual effect. When you put your hands in your pockets, the slightly brushed fabric feels as fluffy as a warm winter glove.

As if that wasn't enough, the special fluffy lining in the pockets and the sewing thread also had to be made from the same raw material. Even our production partner, one of the most innovative and progressive manufacturers of functional clothing in Europe, called us several times during this long journey, shaking his head and politely asking whether we were actually still in our senses. It complicates pretty much every single processing step if you can't work with standard solutions that wouldn't even be questioned in other developments. Fortunately, we were able to convince them of our vision again and again. And we were firmly convinced that it could work and that with this jacket we could set a clear example of what is possible in the area of sustainable functional clothing these days.

Today we can proudly present our latest and most complex jacket development to date: a winter jacket that is made of biodegradable polyamide from the fabric to the sewing thread and is lined exclusively with recycled down.

The development continues

Is this the end of development and can we sit back? Absolutely not, because the zipper is made of a material that is actually foreign to this jacket. We have already used zippers in some of our prototypes, which also follow the monomaterial concept and are made of exactly the same raw material as the rest, but unlike the MIUtec Iso jacket, we have not yet been able to achieve the zipper size required for the down jacket achieve the quality levels we need.

Our journey continues and you can be sure that we will continue to go the extra mile to make sustainable innovations in the textile sector tangible and to constantly push the boundaries of what is possible.

For now, we hope you have fun discovering our MIUtec Re:Down jacket and look forward to the really cold days, because that's when our newest jacket feels most comfortable.