Why We Chose The O’Neill O’Riginals Anorak Snow Jacket: Snowsport heritage, recycled materials, funky styling meets functional.
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With its barreling wave logo and surfing roots, O’Neill will, for many, always be ‘salty sea’ rather than ‘snowy summit’. That’s nobody at O’Neill’s fault. It’s just that when a brand is founded on the Californian coast by a man who invented the wetsuit, wore an eyepatch after a surf accident, and whose son invented the surfboard leash – these assumptions are always going to be made. Big up Jack O’Neill, by the way. He died in 2017, at the age of 94; a true action sports legend.
“Big up Jack O’Neill”
Rocking up to the mountains as an updated version of a jacket designed for the first ever Snowboard World Cup, the O’Neill O’Riginals Anorak Jacket is inspired by the past; a throwback Thursday served with big side helpings of modern trends and modern performance. It’s a reminder that when it comes to snow gear, O’Neill knows what they’re doing.
Materials
The O’Riginals Anorak is made from O’Neill’s Blue Repreve recycled fabric. What this means, in layman’s terms, is that old plastic bottles have been put to good use here; becoming a fundamental part of your ski outerwear’s origin story rather than litter in the ocean. More and more ski and snowboard brands are doing this sort of thing these days, and it’s great to see O’Neill playing their part in this progressive shift with the product’s shell fabric in this instance.
“Plastic bottles have been put to good use here”
This anorak rates 10k / 10k on the waterproof and breathability front. This makes it perfectly well-suited to fun times round the resort, in the park, and at the après. It means it’s not really cut out for proper backcountry missions, but you sort of knew that already didn’t you?
The O’Neill Hyperdry treatment the anorak’s gone through keeps rain, snow, and spills at bay. It also speeds up the drying process no end, without negatively impacting on the item’s softness and breathability as a result.
