Nomad Puffer Pants

Name: Nomad Puffer Pants
Brand: Vollebak
SKU: PNT007SNDXLG
Price: 556.00 USD
Availability: OutOfStock

Based on the earliest known Arctic clothing, they’re engineered to work like a second skin.

$795.00 $556.00

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Model is 6ft 2 / 189cm with a 33 inch / 83cm waist, and wears size Medium.

Designed to recreate the earliest Arctic clothing
Insulated and water repellent
The pants are garment dyed for softness

We’ve spent more than 99% of our time on Earth as nomads. For over 2 million years we migrated across arctic tundra, grasslands and deserts, only carrying what we needed, only keeping what was necessary, and only using the things we had to hand.

Today the last remaining nomads roam the planet. Masters of surviving in harsh and fast-changing environments, they know what it takes to work with nature and leave no trace. So while the rest of the world remains underprepared for Earth’s increasingly volatile climate, nomads have always been ready.

Our Nomad Puffer Pants are built for the times where all you have are the clothes you have on, and every piece of gear has to work across multiple climates and terrain. Designed to recreate the feeling and performance of the original seal skin clothing worn by Arctic nomads, they’re engineered to work like a second skin, protecting you from the wind, cold and rain.

Technical Details

Material made in Italy: 100% polyamide

Synthetic insulation made in Italy: 50% recycled PET bottles, 50% polyester

Water repellent

Wind resistant

Pants are garment dyed

2 large side pockets

1 rear pocket with hidden vertical zip

Crotch vent with hidden zip, constructed with a high-stretch Italian mesh fabric: 75% polyester, 25% elastane

Elasticated waist with drawcord

Pants weigh 650 grams

Machine wash gently 40°C

Wash separately

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The puffer and pants work like a second skin

The aim of the Nomad Puffer and Nomad Puffer Pants is to get back to making cold weather clothing as precisely engineered as early man made it, while protecting you from the elements from head to toe. These early designs would have worked just like a super-soft second skin, regulating your temperature, while protecting you from the cold, wind and rain. We’ve combined a wind resistant and water repellent outer shell with super-compact insulation, hand-dyeing, and double lines of reinforced stitching to recreate the warmth, comfort and performance of the earliest Arctic clothing.

Wear them just like regular winter sweatpants

The pants are designed for comfort and practicality, just like any pair of sweatpants. They have a loose relaxed feel, and three pockets for carrying extra gear. There are two deep side pockets, and another rear pocket on the right hand side with a concealed vertical zipper. There’s a zipped front fly, an elasticated waistband with a drawcord, and stretch cuffs that slip over your feet.

Garment dyed to make them incredibly soft

To recreate the softness of the earliest Arctic clothing we’ve turned to a process called garment dyeing. While most clothes are dyed with a process called piece dyeing – where huge rolls of fabric are dyed, before being cut and sewn to make clothing – we garment dye every pair of pants. Every pair is built by hand, before being submerged in a giant vat of dye to give it its colour and make the material ultra-soft.
The pants feel lived-in from day one

By changing the way you dye fabric, you change the way it looks and feels. Garment dyeing clothes after they’ve been built makes the fabric physically softer, so the pants feel lived-in from the moment you first put them on. The colours you get from garment dyeing also make it look like you’ve been wearing the pants for the last few years. That’s because when you put the whole piece of clothing in dye, the colours build up in the creases and in the stitching, but come out paler at the edges.
Each pair of pants will be different

The garment dyeing process involves dyeing the pants in small batches at very specific temperatures. And the effect of the dyeing can vary from batch to batch, and even from one pair of pants to the next. This means that no two pairs of pants will ever look exactly the same. But they’re not going to come out bright green. It just means they’ll look like you’ve owned them for years from day one.

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Nomads know what it takes to survive

For the last 45,000 years, some of the toughest nomads on the planet have been carving out their existence in the snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures of the Arctic Circle. So when we set out to make cold weather gear for unpredictable places, we decided to start with what they’d already learnt. Nomads in the Arctic Circle used what they had around them to make some of the softest clothes ever built – they wore clothing built from seal intestines to keep them dry, and clothing created out of seal skin to stay warm. Even by today’s standards they’re some of the most innovative pieces of gear humans have ever created.

Early Arctic rain clothing was made from seal guts

Rain jackets made from seal intestines were used across the Arctic because of their natural water repellency. The intestines would be dried out in long strips, before being sewn together into jackets using sinew thread. They were worn for hunting on land in wet weather and travelling by kayak. But while they were effective at keeping out the rain, they weren’t massively durable. Hunters would go through two or three of them a year.

We use super-compact insulation

To keep you warm but still able to move fast, we turned to the same insulation we first used in our Race to Zero Puffer. Sandwiched in between the water repellent outer material and the inner lining is a super-compact synthetic insulation which keeps you as warm as much heavier and thicker pants. That’s because we compress the insulation down to less than a third of its original size before it’s stitched into the pants. And while the insulation takes up 70% less space, it retains 80% of its thermal properties.
Our insulation is made from recycled plastic

Instead of pulling feathers out of ducks, we pull plastic out of used plastic bottles and turn them into insulating synthetic fibres. Every single pair of pants uses 5 half-litre recycled plastic bottles. Staying warm is all about trapping as many pockets of air next to your body as possible, so these synthetic fibres are built to be hollow, which means you’ll automatically have millions of air pockets trapped next to your skin. And as the curl of the fibres traps more air than straight fibres, the microscopic texture of the fibre itself also retains heat.
How the insulation performs against down

While down traps heat well, it doesn’t breathe well. So it’s not the ideal option if you’re working hard. If you’re on the move our insulation will do a better job of regulating your body temperature, as it will breathe better and won’t hold onto sweat. It’s also made from a blend of different fibres each with their own ‘multi-shape’ structure. Some are designed for puffiness, others for resilience or thermal efficiency. By making each fibre a different shape, we stop them linking together and clumping like down does when it gets wet.
How plastic is turned into insulation

To turn recycled plastic bottles into insulation we work with pioneers in thermal insulation based in Milan. They’ve been working on recycled fibres and using plastic bottles in their technology since the 1980s, well before it was the cool or right thing to do. They use a process called mechanical recycling to blend the bottles, eliminating the need for hazardous chemicals and creating synthetic fibres that have the highest loft for the lowest weight, just like down.

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Equipped with a hidden vent

While the pants are built to keep you comfortable in cold conditions, there will be times when you need to work up a sweat. To help prevent you from overheating, we’ve built a concealed zipped vent into the crotch that you can open to help cool you. The vent is lined with a feather-soft, super elastic, lightweight Italian mesh fabric that’s fast drying and incredibly breathable, so sweat can escape easily and cool air can flow around your body.
Built for comfort

Like all our Nomad gear, the Nomad Puffer Pants are zero effort clothing. Once they’re on you simply forget they’re there. The garment dyeing process makes the material follow your body like a blanket. While the super-compact insulation helps keep your temperature stable even when you’re on the move.

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