ISPO Award Winner 2024: The North Face A68a TripleBaffle™ Parka

Created with The North Face athletes, Xavier, Victor and Mila De Le Rue, this parka is part of an expedition system built to provide maximum protection, with a small footprint. The North Face worked closely with the two snowboarders and one skier throughout the whole process of product design. »Everything in the collection was designed with circularity in mind,« says Tristan Chate, Senior Product Merchandising Manager at The North Face.

 From concept development to testing the prototypes in extreme conditions in Europe and Antarctica, the athletes played a crucial role in ensuring that the collection met the highest performance requirements while also challenging the product team to make products with minimal impact.

»There has always been a stigma that you can’t create sustainable products that also perform very highly, like this paradox that in order to make it sustainable you have to sacrifice on the performance element«, says Chate. With Triplebaffle™ Parka the team at The North Face gave a convincing counter-example. 

However, the team met a couple of challenges from a product development perspective along the way. As they wanted to design a product which didn’t need a large amount of disassembly for recycling at the end of life, down - a material normally used in expedition clothing for its lightweight properties and best warmth-to-weight ratio - was out of the question.

Instead, the choice was made to go fully synthetic. The parka is made from monomaterial – all fabric and trims are made with one base material to enable easier recycling without extensive disassembly at the end of life.

So, for the A68a Tripplebaffle™ Parka, The North Face relied on synthetic insulation, which is a little heavier than down. »We now had to think of a new innovative solution to address this from a design perspective - minimizing the weight on this product, while still giving the maximum amount of warmth to survive in these very cold temperatures on expedition,« Chate explained their train of thought.

The unique TripleBaffle™ fabric construction integrates three pieces of fabric into one, creating alternating chambers that eliminate cold spots and provide high thermal performance while minimizing the weight of the parka from a design perspective.

The North Face A68a TripleBaffle™ Parka is also made for a lot of coverage, as the De Le Rues were spending lots of time in extreme conditions. For storage, the parka features large front pockets, reminiscent of heritage expedition parkas from the turn of the century. Additional detachable insulation baffles in the parka can be removed but give extra coverage and warmth when sitting on the boat or standing around and scouting lines in high winds. The baffles can also be attached to other pieces in the collection, providing a modular expedition system. Still, it is all made from the same material. This way, The North Face garments can be recycled into new raw materials, representing a significant step forward in addressing the challenges of recycling technical products and supporting The North Face's commitment to advancing circular design principles. The whole collection was strategically designed with circularity in mind and to keep resources in use for future generations of explorers.

• Woven baffle construction that integrates three pieces of fabric, alternating baffles to eliminate cold spots and deliver high-level warmth
• Circular Design to be recycled at the end of its life, without a lot of dissembling 
• Athlete tested and expedition prove

More info about the collection