Woolrich Arctic Parka

The Arctic Parka is a hooded down coat in a tightly woven cloth of cotton and nylon that Woolrich calls Ramar. It is filled with duck down, ninety parts down to ten of feather, and the cloth is made to resist wind and turn light showers rather than to be waterproof. It has a hood and several pockets and almost no ornament: a work coat, which Woolrich says has kept its shape, its pockets and its hood since it was first drawn.

The company behind it is the oldest maker of outdoor clothing in the United States. John Rich and Daniel McCormick opened a woollen mill on a stream in central Pennsylvania in 1830, and the business grew into a company town, Woolrich, making cloth and clothing for hunters, loggers and trappers and, in 1939, for Richard Byrd's expedition to Antarctica.

The parka came in 1972. Woolrich says it was designed for the men who would build the oil pipeline across Alaska, in temperatures down to forty below; elsewhere it says the coat was meant for the Arctic islands off Canada. Construction of the pipeline did not begin until 1975, so the story may have been tidied in the telling, but the date the company gives has not moved. Since then, by its account, the materials have changed season by season, from storm-resistant wool woven by Loro Piana to Gore-Tex membranes, while the design underneath has stayed put.

For years Woolrich clothing in Europe was made under licence by an Italian company, W.P. Lavori, which took control of the whole business in 2016. The last American plant, in Woolrich itself, closed in 2018, and since December 2025 the company has been owned from Turin. The parka is now offered in many versions, with fur trims, longer cuts and technical shells; the plain version in Ramar cloth is still sold beside them.