Sneak peek at next year's gear: Mountain Hardwear StretchDown Jacket – VIDEO

There’s no arguing that down keeps you warm and now that every brand has their own waterproof down solution, what’s next? How about stretch down? Yup, that’s right. Mountain Hardwear has just become the first company to design a stretchy down jacket. One that will move with you as you ski tour, ice climb or simply complete errands around town. The Mountain Hardwear StretchDown Jacket uses a unique stretch material and expanding welded seams instead of traditional stitch through seams. This makes the StretchDown Jacket more form fitting, comfortable, durable and of course,… stretchy.

At the Winter Outdoor Retailer Show a few weeks ago Mountain Hardwear gave every media person a StretchDown Jacket to try out. After wearing mine in the mountains and around town, I’d have to say it’s incredibly comfortable - like a favourite old hoody that you just can’t stop wearing. It also has the stretch of a light soft shell and the warmth of a full-on down jacket.

The Mountain Hardwear Stretchdown will be available for Fall 2016 and comes in two versions, the Stretchdown Jacket  which will retail for $250 US, and the Stretchdown RS Jacket for $280US. Both jackets use 750-fill Q.Shield hydrophobic down insulation. The Stretchdown Jacket weighs  just over a pound while the RS version weighs just 14 ounces given that it uses a 15 denier Ghost Lite ripstop nylon face fabric. Both versions of the jacket come in a hooded and non-hooded versions.

The regular Mountain Hardwear Stretchdown Jacket and the RS version. RS stands for 'rip-stop' and not 'really stretchy', btw.