Pinewood Caribou Ladies Jacket

Pinewood’s Caribou Ladies Jacket is a water resistant practical outdoor jacket, minimally bulky but tough enough to keep out the worst of the weather.

It’s a lighter layer that has been cut to fit a lady’s figure, with a more flared shape at the hips and 4-way stretch panels to increase manoeuvrability, it’s also quiet to wear with Pinewood’s own TC-Lite™ material. This fully synthetic membrane combines resistance to water ingress with good breathability with taped seams to resist long term strain and direct leakage. The combined panel structure makes the best of the differing materials’ properties, shapes and elasticity in sides, forearms and back yoke for added flexibility.

A High-Vent ™ mesh liner of a stylised tartan-like pattern lines the jacket, so it’s fine next to your skin without feeling sticky if worn as a throw over jacket in warmer weather. There’s a right side internal chest pocket with two external ones for your hands above at the hips, which combine with a left side chest pocket for secure storage and I liked the lack of multiple inner partitions where trivial things get infuriatingly lost. The hood is detachable and spacious to fit easily over a hat, the peaked brim keeps the rain out of your eyes and being waterproof, lets the water drip straight onto your lower body, rather than pool or run into your neck.

There is a windproof flap behind the full length single way zipper on the body that rides all the way up high around your neck and if fully closing the hood, that has two stud fastenings to wrap your chin tightly and keep cold from billowing around your head.

The build

The cut is excellent, with wellproportioned arms to body ratio, the sleeves covering my gloves at the wrist without being overly baggy around my shoulders and underarms. Here again the fabric allows freedom of movement without undue loose fabric. I usually go for a UK size 10 but Koolbox advised me they are a smaller fit and the supplied UK 12, Euro 38, ‘Medium’ was a perfect fit with a wicking layer T-shirt, shirt and medium weight fleece for layered warmth in 5-10-degree winter conditions. I added an additional heavier fleece, which has been excellent down to -3°C so far, with strong icy winds dropping the chill to -10°C when the Snow arrived at the start of March. The Jacket didn’t let the wind chill affect me unduly and I didn’t feel any cold air leak in.

The cuffs have Velcro tabs to tighten at the wrist, although there is no inner neoprene cuff, which is sometimes seen. The body has two elasticated draw cords, one at the hem and a second above the hips so you can really adjust it to hug your figure, further minimising noise and preventing it catching in the wind. Although described as water resistant, it has shed all the rain and snow exposed to it, with surface water beading and brushing off, even when the surface has shown absorbed moisture after crawling, it has yet to soak through in less than two hours which seems to exceed with the advertised technical water resistance and breathability ratios. Water column:>10.000mmRespiration: 14.000 g/m2/24h (ASTM: 6.000 g/m2/24h).

Conclusion

I have been genuinely delighted with this jacket that seems to offer great cut for ladies, lighter weight and freedom of movement, without sacrificing predictable water resistance and breathability with protection against the wind.