![]() ![]() It’s really a collaborative process, and in this case Jeannie Wall, a product consultant and strong mountain athlete, proposed the concept. Our first true active insulation piece was the Superlayer Jacket that launched in fall 2014. Melanie: "It’s actually a little of both. OR: I love that story! So, when it comes to these kinds of ground-breaking designs, like the active insulation pieces like the UberLayer Hoode Jacket, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Do you have an end product in mind from the start? Or do you start with a material and dream up a way to use it? I’ve now been at Outdoor Research for eight years, overseeing first all of the apparel and for the last five years the technical apparel category." ![]() After that I accepted a position at Outdoor Research as product manager, apparel. ![]() I spent five years at Cloudveil, then took a couple years off to travel and ended up meeting my husband in Thailand. They offered me a job to manage their apparel line, and I quickly added a glove line to round things out. Uberlayer for alpine use plus#After two and a half years of a whirlwind learning adventure, plus the realization that I was actually quite good and balancing the business and creative side of things, I applied to Cloudveil in hopes of getting back to my home state of Wyoming. I managed the glove product line and learned glove design and development on the job. In the end they took a chance on me and I was hired as the glove product manager. They got back to me right away saying they didn’t need chemists, but were interested in my experience as a project manager and softgoods buyer. At the end of the winter, I sent a cover letter and resume to Burton Snowboards, enquiring about potential work as a chemist for snowboard resins or polymers. I absolutely loved the experience and was amazed to see this entire world of outdoor retail that I never knew existed. Melanie: "My manager noticed that soft goods were moving much better than they had in the past, and asked me to go to the local trade show to help him buy the next year’s collection. OR: So the ski bum stage eventually paid off? (He later fully supported me in my career as he saw how it evolved). He was pretty disappointed that I wasn’t using my degree, but it all felt right to me at the time and I really loved what I was learning, plus I was becoming a better snowboarder and really having fun with the sport. My father made a comment that he’d never seen anyone study so much for a minimum-wage job. I was the only female employee at the ski shop, and spent a lot of time trying to learn the technology of the materials plus reading all the ski magazines cover to cover. I spent the winter snowboarding and working at a restaurant and also a ski shop. After a year of work I decided to move to Vermont where my father had recently relocated to take a break and figure out what was next. Melanie: "I have a degree in chemistry and biochemistry and my first job out of college was as a project manager at an environmental chemistry lab. What's your background, and how did you get into designing outerwear? Uberlayer for alpine use how to#It's another thing altogether to understand how to use high-tech fabrics to make that happen. OR: It's one thing to be an outdoors person and know what you dream of in a jacket-like dreaming about a pseudo-puffy that breathes while you're skiing uphill. Have you ever wondered how they put the magic in that kind of jacket? We tracked down outerwear product manager Melanie Sirirot to find out. With new active insulation pieces that work well both when we're moving and still, like the UberLayer Hooded Jacket and the Deviator Hoody, we're more likely to be able to wear one single jacket throughout the day. But big changes in fabric technology-and designers' ideas-have changed that. Not too long ago, transitioning during a ski tour or taking a snack break on a cold-weather hike meant a crazy quick-change routine of rummaging through backpacks to add or shed layers. ![]()
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