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SIGNÉ BARRIÈRE N°11 english version<br />
the urge to scarper home to the<br />
cosy bosom of the family. Puffas<br />
are unisex and universal. They are<br />
floppy, formless and ugly to behold<br />
when not worn well. It's fair to say<br />
they serve best to make others look<br />
good. And most importantly, they<br />
are absolutely In-evi-table. This isn't<br />
just a question of fashion. Stepping<br />
out without a puffa encroaches on<br />
public disgrace, plumbing the very<br />
depths of "but what will they say"<br />
territory. No puffa? Yowza. It's tough<br />
being 100% cotton in Puffa Land. So<br />
the question is this: should we be up<br />
in arms about down jackets?<br />
Well, there's the snag. Some say<br />
"no to puffas"; other cry "yes<br />
to puffas". There's "down with<br />
down" and there's "up down". For<br />
once, this is nothing to do with<br />
sustainable development, or<br />
with Planet Fashion ablaze in<br />
plastic and synthetic vapours, or<br />
with chemical-ridden factories<br />
churning out pre-fabricated<br />
"clothing". No, this debate is about<br />
the Michelin-Man pudge making<br />
over-stuffed sausages of our<br />
children, parents, grandparents,<br />
and the rest of us. Yes! It's about<br />
us! Us, in our millions. This real<br />
issue – not so frivolous as it might<br />
appear – concerns the puffa jacket.<br />
The Puffa Generation. Of course it's<br />
a silly question. A hot topic in the<br />
cold reality of the times. The Puffa...<br />
In five words: is it hideous or not?<br />
In three words: for or against? And<br />
in one word: dot dot dot should<br />
cover it.<br />
Alas, the padding often takes on<br />
bizarre forms. The puffa may be<br />
prettied up with fur or styled as<br />
supposedly sexy. Down comes<br />
decked out in the most glaring<br />
shades. But if the jacket fits... Cosying<br />
up in down, with stylish stitching<br />
and fine fabrics, and effortless<br />
zips, can make the puffa the stuff<br />
of dreams. We're torn over this<br />
chubby windbreaker, with or without<br />
sleeves. But the puffa industry,<br />
pooh-poohing the brouhaha, has<br />
long refused to go down without<br />
a fight. Meanwhile, the universal<br />
appeal of Prada has definitively lost<br />
its legendary sparkle: these days, the<br />
Devil wears Puffa.<br />
And the economy has caught up<br />
with this phenomenon: from £20<br />
to...£2. But it's not really about<br />
budget versus bling. It's not –<br />
excuse the pun – cutting one's coat<br />
according to one's cloth. Quietly<br />
creeping out from amongst the soft<br />
down, quilting and tog factor is a<br />
sure sign that the Province of Puffa<br />
is becoming an empire: the classic.<br />
Standardise and conquer. Yves Saint<br />
Laurent, tastemaker extraordinaire,<br />
used to say, "A classic? It begins as a<br />
style and ends raised up the flagpole<br />
as a symbol. What's important for a<br />
classic is for it to be a standard, as<br />
in, to make a stand. Well... Staying<br />
standing, as things stand: that's<br />
style."<br />
Nicely put. But standing up for<br />
something so floppy is no walk<br />
in the park. To recap, the puffa<br />
– a wearable duvet that checks<br />
the chic box – is downy soft, but<br />
overbearing. When cosy and warm<br />
starts to feel suffocating, it surely<br />
defeats the purpose. And vice<br />
versa. The puffa jacket is a hot topic<br />
of debate. It's shapeless, impossible<br />
to wash, but continues to populate<br />
our wardrobes. What do you think?<br />
THE OOH LA LA ORIGINS<br />
OF THE PUFFA<br />
Curiouser and curiouser... Grab<br />
your keyboard, log on to the web<br />
and type the word puffa into a<br />
search engine (at random? Google),<br />
and you're instantly awash in a sea<br />
of down. The FTSE, Wall Street,<br />
and the Paris, Frankfurt and Hong<br />
Kong markets are ablaze with the<br />
incessant march of the Puffa. But<br />
where did it originate? Perhaps in<br />
the Wild West, under the shadow of<br />
Aspen Mountain in The Rockies (as<br />
if mountains could be made of sand),<br />
where the American frontier began.<br />
It was there that in the early 1950s,<br />
a German aeronautical engineer,<br />
Klaus Obermeyer, had the idea of<br />
giving skiing lessons to wealthy<br />
clients. But it's pretty cold up there.<br />
For most of the skiers it was straight<br />
up, straight down, and back to the<br />
bar: no hanging around. Obermeyer,<br />
keen to entice his clients to stay<br />
on the slopes, remembered his<br />
mother's trick for keeping warm:<br />
duck feathers, quilted, and stuffed<br />
till bulging into the lining of a jacket.<br />
He never patented the idea.<br />
The concept later resurfaced<br />
in France, where René Ramillon<br />
and André Vincent founded the<br />
Moncler brand, opening a factory<br />
in Monestier-de-Clermont (hence<br />
the name) near Grenoble. Their<br />
area of expertise, and their passion,<br />
was mountaineering gear. This was<br />
the age that scaled the heights<br />
of the Himalayas and conquered<br />
the dizzying peaks of Everest: one<br />
of their friends, Lionel Terray, a<br />
famous climber of the Himalayas,<br />
was the first to climb in a jacket<br />
made by them. Moncler went on to<br />
partner with the French team for the<br />
Grenoble Olympic Games in 1968.<br />
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