ALLIED Feather + Down, In Partnership With Fuze Biotech, Takes Home 2023 Outdoor Retailer Innovation Award
Allied Feather + Down, world leaders in sustainably sourced performance down insulation, in partnership with Fuze Biotech, innovators in sustainable, antibacterial, and fast-drying fabric and surface finishes, recently secured a 2023 Outdoor Retailer Innovation Award for their new ExpeDRY down insulation. ExpeDRY outperforms traditional hydrophobic down under extreme, real-world conditions.
Recognized for its innovative approach to moisture management in down jackets and sleeping bags, and fueled by Fuze’s gold particle technology, ALLIED’s ExpeDRY represents the next generation in high performance down insulation. This new technology is poised to render current, chemistry-intensive hydrophobic down treatments obsolete.
This award comes just weeks after ISPO Textrends listed ExpeDRY as one of their Top Five most excellent products in the Fibers & Insulations category.
“At ALLIED, we pride ourselves on creating the best performing, highest quality, and most sustainable down insulation available,” said Matthew Betcher, Creative Director with ALLIED. “Always innovating, we spent countless hours researching down’s performance in the presence of moisture, and realized that we could improve upon our original HyperDRY hydrophobic down insulation. We found that insulation chambers behave differently in real-world scenarios and working with Fuze allowed us to create a much better solution.”
Traditional hydrophobic down works great when in direct contact with water droplets. However, in real world situations, the down in jackets and sleeping bags more often comes into direct contact with water vapor at high levels of humidity, where hydrophobic chemistry is far less efficient. ExpeDRY actively works to keep this vapor from condensing, allowing it to evaporate more easily, keeping the entire insulation chamber, and the user, dryer longer.
“Fuze Biotech strives to create high performance, sustainable solutions for real-world applications,” said Andrew Peterson, Chief Technical Officer. “This partnership with ALLIED allows us to broaden our reach into outdoor gear and we see real opportunity in this market as high performance materials are key to keeping people safe and warm in extreme environments.”
ExpeDRY has a much lower environmental impact than traditional hydrophobic finishes and allows brands to remove another, unneeded chemical from their supply chain. Sustainable in sourcing and performance, the gold used in this process is recovered from discarded electronics and will not wash out.
ExpeDRY insulation is currently available globally in jackets by Artilect and Jack Wolfskin with additional brands coming online for FW 23/24.
