The Love-Hate Relationship: Puffer jacket puffery

Sunday, 7 June 2026

Because of Mike’s reluctance, Carly instead sampled potential puffer jackets for him up against this nearby statue at Kathmandu Christchurch CBD.

It’s winter ‒ or spring, or autumn, or anything outside midsummer ‒ so, in accordance with New Zealand law, everybody is wearing their puffer jacket. Elevated body temperature conformist CARLY GOOCH and hypothermic fashionista MICHAEL WRIGHT dress for the occasion.

Cooled down: Michael Wright

I might need a puffer jacket, eh. I’ve had the same “shower-proof” black sheeny number for a decade and it’s run its race. Even when I bought it it was a wisp of a thing. Like something you’d use to puff up the lining of an actual puffer jacket. Now, you could fit the entire desiccated remains into one puffy sleeve.

What do they put in there, anyway? Puffins? Maybe not. But even so I just can’t do it. It feels like the fashion equivalent of giving up. Like pyjamas at the supermarket or Country Road.

Publishable suggestions include Kathmandudes, a MacPack and a puffel.

And boy have we given up. Is there a more omnipresent item of clothing in our culture? There must be, just on base probability, other ways to stay warm. But alas, we have succumbed to the tyranny of non-choice and all just decided to wear the same bulbous monstrosity everywhere, every day for most of the year. Puffer jackets are the Ford Rangers of clothes.

That said, you can’t beat the smooth handling and rugged drivability of a Ford Ranger, I mean puffer jacket. I tried one on for these photos and it was a delight. Sleek, smartly tailored and light as a feather. The quilting says ‘I’m a tool’ but the fitted hood says ‘No, I really am a tool’. I could hardly even tell there were murdered, baby, orphan puffins inside. I bought two on the spot.

Mike wears a puffer from North-pac-face-mandu’s new ‘Ad nauseum’ line. The shade is ‘project manager black’.

Of course I didn’t. There was a sale on though, so I could have. Has anyone ever bought a puffer jacket at the recommended retail price? Does anyone even know what it is? What do those north-pac-face-mandu stores do the rest of the year?

Hibernate, probably. I own one piece of clothing from such a store: a pair of ‘winger shorts’ which, as far as I can tell, are functionally identical to ‘shorts’ save for the fact that they are riotously coloured and quite snug and I enjoy them more than regular ones on that basis. Yes, I bought them on sale.

I see the odd pair around. If everyone and his mum started wearing them, would I stop? No. It’s an odd thing, the hive-mind. Sometimes we’re industrious worker bees, uniformly clad, the mutual utility of our garb left unsaid. Other times we’re mindless drones, floating through Pak’nSave with our Ben & Jerry’s and gallon of V, instinctively reassured by the fact that everyone else in the store has paired their black puffer with pyjama bottoms too. Identical amorphous subjects, submitting to the same low authority. We surrender.

Puffed up: Carly Gooch

First of all, if you don’t have a puffer jacket, what on earth are you wearing when you go to the rugby, check out that waterfall in Arthur’s Pass or throw a warm layer in the car “just in case”?

I’ve been canvassing my workmates, Mike excluded, about puffer jackets and while most own one, there are a select few, actually, just one who we’ll call Nicola, who compares said jackets to Crocs - both ugly and unnecessary yet somehow popular.

Carly goes for the Joey from Friends look, piling on a few puffers to really combat the cold.

I disagree. I refuse to own Crocs but I’ve owned the same black Macpac puffer jacket now for more than a decade and it’s a trusted staple in my winter wardrobe.

I remember the day I got it. It was a present from my husband, then boyfriend, while we were living in Sydney - yes, puffers are even ubiquitous in Australia. He cut the tag off, and in doing so, managed to put a tiny nick in the fabric. I’ve never let him near anything new with scissors again. Despite this mishap, the jacket’s insides haven’t seeped outside and all is right with the world.

This puffer jacket doesn’t see the light of day half the year, but from the end of autumn till the warmer climes kick in, it hangs on the back of a dining room chair for its daily use while walking Oscar. It’s the dog-walkers uniform and almost embarrassing when I pass the 60-something year-old woman walking her dog in the exact same puffer.

This jacket has been on walks in the bush, tripped in the car boot as a precautionary ‘something warm in case disaster strikes’ and kept me cosy during a 10km running event in Queenstown where the wind was so damn cold there was no way I was going without it. It did end up coming off half way through but despite what you’d think, it’s easy enough to tie those sausage arms stuffed with feathers around your waist like a discarded jersey.

Have you seen how small those jackets can become when you stuff them in a pouch like a sleeping bag in its case? Note: there’s no rolling, it’s definitely a stuffing motion.

There is a disclaimer in puffer jackets though, I refuse to wear one to work, in town or on a night out - that’s what woollen coats are for. There’s a time and place for certain outfits. Togs can only be worn on the beach, Lycra cycle gear is only for riding a bike and ski suits - well, you get the idea. The puffer is casual, if you’re wearing it with office pants and a shirt, you’re wearing it wrong.

For a final thought, why is it called a ‘puffer’ jacket? If anything it’s puffy or puffed but for it to be a puffer jacket implies it’s puffing. AI suggested options like bubble jacket, sleeping bag coat, and my favourite, duvet jacket.

So let’s wear our duvet jackets with pride - on a casual basis.