The Northern Dream Vest Turns Inside Out
The Northern Dream Vest Turns Inside Out
Two faces, one vest, and a zipper that works from either side.
Two vests in one
The Northern Dream vest has two faces. One side is Horween horsehide. The other side is long curl lambskin from northern British Columbia. Wear it with the leather out and it is a leather vest. Turn it and it is a sheepskin vest. It is the same piece, and it is two different things.
The vest comes from the same family as the Northern Dream jacket. The jacket keeps its lambskin inside. The vest lets the lambskin out when you want it out.
Why sheepskin is so warm
Wool is crimped. Every fiber has a natural wave, and those waves trap air between them. Still air is what keeps a body warm. A long curl fleece holds a great deal of it.
Wool also handles water in a way that feels like a small miracle. It can absorb up to about thirty percent of its weight in water before it feels wet, and when it absorbs moisture it gives off a little heat. Tiny pores let water vapor pass through, so the warmth stays and the damp moves out.
Airmen trusted sheepskin long ago. In 1934 the Army Air Corps standardized the B-3 jacket, a sheepskin coat worn with the wool turned in, for the cold at altitude. It was the heavy jacket of the air for about ten years.
The zipper that made it possible
A reversible vest lives or dies by its zipper. Whitcomb Judson patented his clasp locker in 1893 and showed it that summer at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Gideon Sundback, an engineer in the same company, developed the modern design in 1913. In 1923 B.F. Goodrich gave it a name for its rubber galoshes, and the name was zipper. In 1937 the company in Meadville, Pennsylvania took the name Talon.
The Northern Dream vest closes with a vintage style Black Bear Brand TALON reversible zipper. The pull turns, so it works cleanly from the leather side and the lambskin side alike.
Why a vest
A vest warms the chest and the back and leaves the arms free. It sits under a jacket on a cold morning and stands alone on a cool afternoon. It is a piece that changes with the day.
A Way Of Life.
Shop the Story
The Northern Dream Reversible Vest, Horween Horsehide with Long Curl Lambskin
Related Reading
Goose Down, and the Seattle Man Who Put It in a Jacket
The Western Jacket, and the Chicago Tannery That Makes the Leather