Celebrated Canadian gear maker Arc’teryx has been said to make the “Hermès bags of men’s performance wear.” A quote easy to laugh at, until you see it was ACRONYM designer (and early Burton outerwear collaborator) Errolson Hugh who said it.
But on this day in late November, braced against winds and rain in the snowy New Hampshire woods, I felt anything but dainty.
Last month, Arc’teryx invited Field Mag to the first test day of its updated Alpha SV hardshell. The jacket—a direct descendant of the brand’s very first apparel item, the 1998 Alpha SV—is the first Arc’teryx product to use the all-new GORE-TEX Pro 2.0 membrane fabric.