CANADA GOOSE: Over-priced, over-balleyhooed and over-hyped!

[Note: Here we go, tilting at windmills again my friends, and poking fun at some of our most vaunted social-class shibboleths. That is the utter truth of it, or my name is not Don Diego Alonso Quijano…otherwise known as Cervantes’ serenely mad ‘Man of la Mancha’]

Put yourself into a suggestive frame of mind and favor me by imagining the following scenario. There you are, a person who normally eschews long bouts of television viewing (either streaming, subscription or ‘free’ commercial, since they all rot the mind), but who, despite this personal proscriptive ethical sanction, has just happened to tune into a BBC or Deutsche Welle world news broadcast some evening.

There’s a report being given on unusually blustery, perhaps very atypical cold weather that is sweeping some poor cold-soaked part of the globe and there she is, a diminutive, almost elfin but exquisitely lovely young Asian anchor-woman, standing ostentatiously out on an icy outcropping of snow (or perhaps even not situated in a particularly bitterly cold place), looking at the camera with those gorgeously seductive, almond-shaped eyes, luxuriously thick black (well, not really black but so deep a brunette hue you would think it is) hair flying out behind her in the wind. Her mellifluous voice is perfect…just the right mix of soprano and mid-range tones to constitute a carefully modulated and most pleasant-to-listen-to purrrrr (think CBS’s talented former anchor Anne Curry, here) as she earnestly articulates the talking points she has been handed by her prompter relative to whatever disaster is unfolding nearby. It’s not so much the fact that we’re talking about a favorite female type, here (the slender young and well-educated but well-proportioned, modern Asian-American woman) that is the object of my focus here but what she is clad in.

On this particular woman’s ethereally attractive frame (which is completely obscured by her clothing ensemble) is a thick, puffy parka (probably of a dark hue) with a lupine fur ruff almost as luxurious as her own hair. It is, like almost every cold-weather parka, fitted with several pockets on its frontal exterior surface but the eyes are immediately drawn not to the details of its construction but to a small, round, red & white embroidered patch sewn onto the left sleeve.

A close inspection of this patch reveals an outline of the Antarctic continent and the words ‘CANADA GOOSE’ and ‘Polar Project’, somewhat boldly emblazoned upon it.

Curious thing, you might briefly muse but unless you’re an up-to-date and sartorially hip ‘fashionista first class’, you might be totally unmindful about what this NBC anchor (Korean-American Kathy Park) is wearing and more fully focused on her commentary. Let me therefore explain myself, here, before anyone rushes to their smartphone to make snarky, snide disparagements of sexist male chauvinisms like this.

Watch a few similar broadcasts, here and there, throughout various international news shoots and sooner or later you’ll note that this ubiquitous ‘Canada Goose’ emblem appears fairly frequently on outerwear being worn by highly paid media people. You might also catch occasional glimpses of identical parkas being worn by ‘serious’ polar expedition members who are off on yet another adventure in the extreme and remote cold parts of the world. I am told that when they were filming the smash hit mini-series ‘Game of Thrones’ (one of my absolute favorites, I am ashamed to admit, as the aspiring pseudo-intellectual that I fancy myself to be), the stars/cast and more important members of the production crew wore these parkas to stay warm while they were waiting between shots in the colder regions the film was made in.

If you’re a young fashionista, you’ll take added note of the fact that CANADA GOOSE uses a bevy of vapid young millennials to sell perfectly unremarkable casual clothing products branded withy CANADA GOOSE emblems, also, in addition to rugged he-men male models to model the parkas.

So what exactly is this parka I am making reference to and why am I making such a pointedly big deal out of it here?

It is in fact the CANADA GOOSE Arctic Parka, a down-filled item of external, cold weather protective clothing that, believe it or not, costs in excess of about US$ 1500! WHAAAAT!? That’s right, a cool (pun intended), retail fifteen hundred smackers (or 1500 Simoleans, if you prefer) per copy.

Now, that’s probably enough to induce a slightly involuntary gag reflex to most of our throats…but not, I assure you, to the laryngeal ducts of those for whom attainment and display of extreme high status and/or conspicuous consumption are chief raisons d'être in life. By my reckoning, for most of us, US$500 is probably the absolute upper limit of what any ‘average person’ would consider a ‘reasonable’ retail price for any jacket, regardless of any and all other considerations whatsoever. But three times that?! Insanity!

That may well be the collective opinion of about 97% of the American public, but it certainly doesn’t reflect the mindset of people like our luscious Asian female news anchor (with her ever-upward career aspirations, status-seeking and professional enhancement inclinations), who know for a fact that although that little embroidered sleeve patch only measures about 4 inches in diameter, it stands out as an identification symbol (and membership card ID) to that select and archly aesthetic segment of our population who regard themselves as exemplars of what the American Dream can bestow, if one is earnest enough in one’s pursuit of the higher rewards bestowed upon the cultural elite and leading fashion icons of our society. In that sense, it flashes out an unmistakable message (think: a neon-lit brilliance almost but not quite equal to that of the sun) of our pop American economy’s fashionista cognoscenti that the wearer of this jacket either has VERY deep-pocket patrons or is him/herself a striver of the highest possible order.

So, begs the question, what exactly IS this CANADA GOOSE fixation so many people have now and what makes it worth putting so many paragraphs of commentary down here, in my remarks about it? I’m glad you asked!

CANADA GOOSE is a company located in Canada, Toronto, to be exact, and it has been established for a number of decades. You can read the company’s own history of their outfit here, if you wish (although keep in mind that it is the usual self-laudatory paean to itself that is characteristic of most commercial brands these days).

CANADA GOOSE makes a big point of emphasizing the fact in its advertising that warmth is its chief intended objective, taking highest priority on its list of attributes when it comes to designing more ‘serious’ protective clothing (such as polar parkas, expedition clothing, etc.) and there’s little argument there: their outerwear products are in fact exactly that…VERY warm items of clothing. Another big ballyhooed ‘goal’ of theirs is quality, both in manufacture and functional design, but it is there that I must stop heaping loads of glowing regard on them, for when one compares their standard extreme cold-weather gear with more advanced contemporary competitive products, one quickly sees that they suffer from the same syndrome that all singularly successful commercial firms are afflicted by: sitting on their laurels, purely because of their past successes.

Add now to this sit-rep the fact that no other a social burr-under-the-saddle than PETA has recently directed a most effective public 'consciousness-raising' protest against the company's promotion of what PETA describes as inhumane animal practices (and rightfully, IMO), since the company 'harvests' geese to produce its eiderdown and also uses coyote fur to make its cozy ruffs. In fact, there have been alternatives available for as many decades as CANADA GOOSE has been around as a cpommercial entity.

Case in point. In the mid-to-late 40s the United States Air Force designed and put into production a heavy-duty, extreme cold-weather external parka designated the N-2 and N-3 series outer garments. These were superficially quite similar to what CANADA GOOSE sells today and featured the same fur-ruff, multi-pocket details, insulating and wind-proofing features…but at considerably lower cost. So ubiquitous and universally adopted was this ‘modern era’ military cold-weather parka (by not just the USA, but other nations as well) that to this very day, the basic N-series jackets are still produced (both for military forces and by commercial companies generating spin-offs of the design).

The N-2B, which is the shorter version of then N-[3B, was intended for wear by aircrew in cramped cockpits that didn’t allow for excess bulk. It had an elasticated woven waistband and woven elasticated arm cuffs and the attached hood was fitted with a fur-ruff (originally wolf fur, but later coyote fur and finally…in the most recent iterations…from white Acrylic polymer that closely resembles real fur and also functions like the genuine article in preventing the formation of ice). The longer version, known as the N-3B parka, was identical to the shorter version except that it had a full hood that was not zippered down the center (to permit it to lie flat in an aircraft’s seat). The longer version (N-3B) also featured two lower front bellows pockets as well as two upper diagonal pockets (fur or Acrylic-lined)…one on each side…that functioned as hand-warmer pockets. The shorter N-2B also had these diagonal pockets. The original interior insulation of the N-2/3 series parkas featured natural wool, for its warmth keeping properties when wet, but subsequent iterations of the jacket used synthetic Polyester fibers as an insulating layer and were probably as good as or superior to the natural materials originally used. The exterior fabric of the earliest models of these N-series jackets was pure Nylon (Perlon, as the Europeans know it), but later issues (N-3B, etc.) featured 60/40 cloth (68% Nylon/32% Cotton) for its well-documented ‘breathability’ feature (both water-resisting and ‘breathing’ permeability is important in external shells construction, since perspiration is a distinct liability in severe cold weather that is to be scrupulously avoided, whenever possible).

I well remember, back when I was a Strategic Air Command medic in the Flight Surgeon’s Office at Minot AFB (NDak), my own wonderfully warm, issued N-3B parka. It was actually half of a two-part cold-weather outfit that featured F-1(A/B) insulated pants that joined together with special air-insulated rubber ‘arctic boots’…also known variously as ‘Korea boots’ and ‘bunny-boots’…with the addition of an insulated cap known as the B-9B helmet (a later, improved version was designated the HGU-38/P extreme cold weather cap) and suitable arctic gloves to complete the outfit. The ‘suit’ could also be worn with artic-style USAF mukluks, depending upon the duty post’s severity.

These N-3B type parkas were utterly fantastic for retaining body warmth while wandering around on North Dakota’s ass-feezingly cold runways and support aprons and they were so important that Air Force personnel were strictly required (ordered) to always keep their parka with them at all times in the winter months, either worn or in their vehicle, or face disciplinary action. And if you were ever a part of General Curtis Le May’s Strategic Air Command, back during the ‘Cold War’, you know exactly how serious a breech of Le May’s orders would be regarded!

At any rate, I came to know and appreciate my personal N-3B parka like few other items of clothing I’ve ever had (and I still have a full kit of the above items, stashed in an Air Force parachute bag in my closet, should we ever suffer another planetary ice-age, however unlikely that possibility may be regarded in these days of rapidly warming ‘Climate Change’). But beyond all that, I came to appreciate the famed N-3B parka’s ingenious and last design feature as an apex of extreme cold-weather gear. This important distinction should be pointed-out here: that of the fur-lined diagonal pockets that the N-3B featured. Those pockets were a real life-saver for just about anyone working outside in severe cold and excessively windy conditions. They must have saved thousands of aircrew and ground support personnel’s hands, when working in or on aircraft in such extreme locales.

And now that I’ve expended a bit of effort lauding the features of the US Air Force marvelous N-3B cold-weather parka, let’s return to the modern CANADA GOOSE commercial counterpart…the one that TV news anchor Kathy Parks (a local hometown product who rose to national media network prominence) has been seen wearing on news report shoots in cold climates (i.e. the CANADA GOOSE polar parka), and a great many other ‘celebrity fashionistas’ as well.

The CANADA GOOSE polar parka is normally produced in a stunningly dull array of darker colors (with the exception of red, which is a stock color), although I have no doubt that for anyone or any outfit willing to fund a colossally expensive custom order (say for an expedition to the polar icecaps), I am sure you can have the parka custom fabricated in any shade you choose…perhaps even in a rainbow fabric (for the First LGBTQ Antarctic Expedition…and just wait, there will be one sometime in the near future). In terms of pockets (a critical feature), the standard CANADA GOOSE polar parka has four generous-sized pockets on its front, two chest pockets above and two pockets below (at waist level). It features a blended fabric external layer that breathes and provides specific water-resistance to a certain degree. The fur-ruff (and this they make a huge clamor about) is constructed of Coyote fur (which they make a big point of emphasizing is a ‘sustainable resource’…?!). The main (and only) insulation inside the parka is very high-quality goose down of the finest gauge, so as to eliminate any quill remnants and/or other less desirable bits of the unhappy fowl’s plumage).

And that’s pretty much it. Oh, that excludes the lovely little embroidered emblem on the left sleeve that is the CANADA GOOSE equivalent of the famed Mercedes-Benz isotoxal star (or if you’re not a total stickler for precision, a ‘Triskelion star’). Displaying that little cloth patch on your clothing may be considered similar to flaunting a sold gold Rolex Presidential Oyster watch, and believe me, that little status symbol probably accounts for fully half of the justifications cited for today’s CANADA GOOSE products MSRPs.

This up-scale marketing schtick is known collectively as ‘branding’ and it’s what makes a status symbol…any widely recognised status symbol…in today’s highly materialistic, excessively consumptive consumer economy…what it is. A CANADA GOOSE parka without its little virtual isotoxal star equivalent is not a full-fledged CANADA GOOSE product! Remove it from the parka and you’re looking at a product that is probably marketable at less than half of its present asked-for commercial sales value! Accordingly, no national news anchor worth her US$75-125K/year salary would dare to be seen thus absented of that expensive little patch!

CANADA GOOSE began humbly enough, in 1957, when an immigrant named Sam Ticks founded a small company in Toronto named Metro Sportswear, specializing in vests, and raingear, snowmobile suits and miscellaneous small personal wear items.

Since then, it has striven relentlessly to establish itself in the forefront of public fancy by savvy marketing and promotional efforts that include ‘free provision’ of CANADIAN GOOSE products to various outdoor organisations and groups (such as mountaineering expeditions, Arctic explorations and even Iditarod Sledding racers among many others); i.e. wear our logo and we’ll provide you with free gear. While this method of increasing notoriety and market share is rather common to all ambitious commercial product companies in our present-day world, the Rolex and Mercedes-Benz examples should be kept in focus when considering the company’s intrinsic merits on an absolute-value-for cost quid-pro-quo scale. The CANADA GOOSE polar parka has today become a red-hot 'must-have' status symbol for a broad range of well-known and adulated (if vapid and banal) celebrities. Furthermore, and probably in part due to all the social media images of these pathetic people strutting around in their CANADA GOOSE products, even the average schlemmiel in the streets wants one!

In other words, ignoring for the moment the fact that CANADIAN GOOSE has succeeded beyond its most ambitious dreams in establishing itself as ‘the’ benchmark in extreme cold weather protective garments in the minds of the public, what exactly does CANADIAN GOOSE do for individual human environmental protection that a far cheaper equivalent (like the USAF N-3B series parkas) does not? In four words, not a damn thing.

Oh yes, they fund various worldwide (principally Canadian) environmental/humanitarian activities (such as polar bear preservation groups, et al), but again this is pure marketing and promotional advertising noblesse oblige…not any ethical substantiation of the benefits of their form of extreme cold functional capability over a far cheaper alternative (the N-3B), for let’s face it, an old military surplus (even a brand-new clone copy) does little for one’s personal image enhancement. Flashing a CANADIAN GOOSE patch on one’s parka (and God help anyone who tries to counterfeit such a trademark device on imitation parkas of this type) certainly DOES tell the world that you’ve arrived (and would probably also wear a Rolex and drive a Mercedes, if your circumstances permitted it). It’s all largely a very contrived and hyper-artificial nuance of that eternal human striving to stand apart from the hoi poloi! Sentence, chapter and verse of the history of the human race, since the dawn of recorded history.

Returning to my favorite old N-3B extreme cold weather parka, I wouldn’t trade the purely functional ultility of those front diagonal hand-warmer pockets found on the N-3B for all the CANADIAN GOOSE parkas in their Toronto warehouse! And at prices ranging from US$75 to $150 per, the cost of benefitting from that superbly conceived cold weather military surplus parka is a pittance, compared to forking over one-and-a-half-thousand Rasbuckniks to cover the scents of other status-hounds with your own! [Note: For those who aren’t familiar with either wild Lupine critters or Canis Familiaris…dogs…’scent-marking’ is the natural if somewhat lower order equivalent announcement of higher status among our non-verbal, four-footed doggie friends (and wolves) of wearing a CANADIAN GOOSE parka in front of television cameras.]

And so it goes, among us curiously (and damnably) paradoxical creatures called Homo sapiens (surely that name the most supremely ironic cosmic joke, if ever there was one) who continue to devastate the natural world we exist within (as co-critters with others who are slightly lower on the fore-brain size scale) in the name of ‘scientific progress’. When I reflect briefly on CANADA GOOSE’s much emphasised promotional efforts to employ ‘sustainable resources’ in the making of their parkas, I am also prompted to chuckle, since that statement LIKELY translates to the fact that the coyotes whose fur is sourced out for the company’s fur ruffs are considered little more than nuisance animals by the company…despite the fact that coyotes have been definitively established as a member of the broad wolf family group…and therefore ridding the world of excess coyotes (to make fur ruffs from their skin) is probably considered by CANADA GOOSE to be doing the world an ecological favor! Stealing a goose’s down is one thing (even though it’s hardly doing the animal a favor), but the taking an animal’s life (to use his fur for wearable ruffs) is not exactly in the same contextual ballpark, as I see things. Perhaps OK in a pre-history civilization of hunter-gatherers, but certainly not a commendable trait in a more humanely ordered, modern, post-industrial civilization as we consider ourselves to be today.

Exclusivity comes at a high cost in today’s status-weighted world, certainly, and when one wanders around places like NYC’s Bronx and notes all the out-and-out bums and homeless, drug addicts and substance abusers who wear cheap commercial N-3B parkas to protect them in the freezing winter weather, one has to wonder (marvel, perhaps, is a better term) at the human condition yet again and the paradox that this contrast between military surplus and high-end consumer status items so excellently showcases. As a final note, I don’t certainly begrudge winsome Korean-American media personality Kathy Park her comfy-cozy CANADA GOOSE cold weather wear, but I somehow find that I still somehow harbor a hidden wish deep-down inside me that she could somehow rise above the Philistine attraction of high-status symbols like that (although NBC would definitely discharge her were she to show up on location in an N-3B, LoL!) and lead a far more down-to-earth life in terms of life valuations and assessments of what really matters in America. She’s certainly smart enough.

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CANADA GOOSE PROTESTS

1) https://theirturn.net/2016/11/20/canada-goose-fur-protests/

2) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/24/canada-goose-fashion-brand-to-stop-using-fur-by-end-of-2022

3) https://www.newsweek.com/are-canada-goose-jackets-unethical-controversy-explained-1329557

4) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/style/canada-goose-no-new-fur.html

5) https://nypost.com/2021/06/24/canada-goose-to-end-the-use-of-all-fur-on-its-pricey-parkas/

There are many more such recent news articles on this subject and the above are just a small sample of them. Although I’m not necessarily a fan of militant animal rights groups like PETA, at least in this area of concern they’re right in the ballpark!

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Image credits: the image appearing here is used without official permission, in hopes that the photographer will kindly understand!