The clocks fell back this weekend, and the city got the message: dark by five, frost on the windshields, and the first forecast of the season with the word "flurries" in it. When we wrote our guide to overcoats last month, we ended on a concession — the overcoat owns the tailored months, but the coldest weeks of the year belong to the parka. No shame in that. This week, then, the companion piece: how to choose a winter parka in Montreal, before the weather makes the choice for you.
How to choose a winter parka: start with the wet, not the cold
Most men shop for a parka by asking how warm it is. In this city, that is the second question. January's minus twenty is, in its own way, honest weather — dry, bright, predictable. What ruins coats and ruins evenings is November and December: freezing drizzle, wet snow, the slush that arrives sideways off a passing bus. And here is the inconvenient fact about down, which remains the best insulation anyone has invented: it works by holding air, and when it gets wet it holds nothing. A soaked down coat is an expensive windbreaker.
So the shell matters as much as the fill. We made this argument in our winter-preparation piece back in September — down, yes, but down behind a waterproof face — and the wall now backs it up. The taupe Typhoon Platinum short parka from Paul & Shark ($1,450) is the cleanest version of the idea we carry: a fully waterproof, windproof technical shell over a goose-and-duck-down fill, with taped zipper plackets so the weather cannot sneak in through the hardware. We will also say a word for the colour. Half this city spends the winter in a black parka. Taupe sits beautifully over the browns and grays we have been arguing for all season, and it does not vanish into the crowd on René-Lévesque. The man who walks real distances should look at the navy full-length Typhoon ($1,550) we featured in September; the short parka is for the man whose winter happens mostly between a car and a door.
The honest exception: when synthetic beats down
A store with a $1,450 down parka on the wall has every reason to tell you down is the only answer. It is not. The black technical puffer from Milestone ($850) — a German-designed house, new to our wall this fall — is filled with Sorona, a synthetic insulation, inside a laminated stretch fabric with bonded quilting. Synthetic fill shrugs off the damp that flattens down, keeps insulating when wet, and tolerates ordinary care. The cut is slightly tailored through the body, which is rare in this category, and with the hood zipped off it reads closer to clothing than to equipment.
The honest division is this. If your winter involves standing still outdoors — the bus stop, the arena parking lot, a dog with firm opinions about the length of a walk — down is the warmer animal and worth the difference. If your winter is a heated garage, a métro platform and two city blocks, the synthetic will do everything you ask of it, at a little more than half the price, and it will not apologize for it. Both answers are correct. Buying the one that matches someone else's week is the only mistake.
Fit, the hood, and the two details men skip
Try a parka over the heaviest sweater you own — bring it, because unlike nearly everything else in the store, a parka cannot be let out. Taped seams and quilted construction leave our tailors nothing to work with; the size you buy is the size you live with, five winters running. The sleeve should cover your shirt cuff and then some, so that glove and cuff meet with no bare wrist between them.
Two details are worth insisting on. First, a removable hood, because it turns one coat into two: storm equipment for the Tuesday blizzard, a cleaner collar line for dinner on Friday. Both coats above have one. Second, a two-way zipper — it sounds trivial until you sit down in a car, open six inches from the bottom, and the coat stops fighting you. Length is the same conversation we had about overcoats: the man who drives to the door can take the short parka, while the man who walks wants cover that outlasts the wind.
A word about the calendar, because the parka wall keeps a short one. The taupe Typhoon is already down to two sizes, and every year the first hard frost empties the racks in a single weekend — the man who shops that Monday chooses from what is left, not from what was bought. Early November is the moment. The outerwear wall is as complete as it will be all winter, and while no appointment is needed, you can book one and we will have both coats, your size, and a firm opinion waiting on Decarie. The overcoat has the tailored days covered. The parka has all the others — and in a Montreal winter, the others are most of them.
