Breathable Light Windbreaker Jacket

Wind cuts through a fleece like it is not there.

Ten degrees and still is jumper weather. Ten degrees with a hard southerly coming across an open paddock is a different day entirely. Moving air pushes straight through knit and fleece and strips the warm layer off your skin, and once your hands are cold you have lost your fine motor control — which is when you fumble a fitting, misread a gauge, or knock off with the job half done.

The fix is not another jumper. It is a tightly woven outer layer the wind cannot push through, worn over whatever you already own. That is what this is: a light shell with a hood that folds away into the collar, zips under both arms for when you start working hard, and zip pockets that hold onto the day's small gear when you bend over.

It is a windbreaker, and that is all we are going to call it. The supplier publishes no waterproof rating and no fibre content, so neither appears on this page. It blocks moving air, it packs down small, and it goes over a fleece. In real rain you will get wet.

What It Does

• Stops the wind chill: a tightly woven shell breaks up moving air so it stops at the fabric instead of reaching your base layer. That is the whole job of a windbreaker.
• Dumps heat when you work: zip vents under both arms open once you are moving and close again when you stop, so you are not soaked in your own sweat by smoko.
• Carries its own hood: the hood folds down into the collar and zips shut, so it is with you when the weather turns and out of your way when it does not.
• Closes the gaps: a drawcord at the hem and a hook-and-loop tab at each cuff shut the two openings wind actually gets in through.
• Takes a patch: a hook-and-loop panel on the upper sleeve holds a name tape, a blood-group patch or a company patch without sewing anything.
• Layers over what you own: it is a shell, not a coat. The warmth comes from the fleece underneath, which means one jacket covers autumn through to a cold morning.

Key Features

• Stand collar, fold-away hood: the hood stows inside the collar behind its own zip rather than hanging off the back.
• Full-length front zip: runs the whole body with a pull tab you can find in gloves.
• Zip pockets front and sleeve: chest and sleeve pockets all close with a zip, so nothing tips out when you lean into an engine bay.
• Underarm ventilation zips: one under each arm, shown on the supplier's own detail panel.
• Cable port in a front pocket: the supplier's panel shows a headphone cable pass-through built into the front pocket.
• Reinforced elbows: a second layer of shell fabric sewn over both elbows, which is where a sleeve wears through first.
• Adjustable cuffs: a hook-and-loop tab over an elasticated inner cuff, so you can pull it down over a glove or cinch it up.
• Drawcord hem: a cord lock at the hem pulls the bottom in and stops the jacket ballooning in a gust.
• Mesh inner face: the lining is an open mesh panel rather than a solid liner.
• Three colours, six sizes: black, army green and khaki, S through XXXL — though not every size is made in every colour. See the limits below.

Limits

• It is not waterproof: no hydrostatic head figure is published for this shell and there is no taped seam anywhere in the supplier's photographs. Treat it as a wind layer. In steady rain you will get wet through.
• No tested wind figure: windbreaker is the category name, not a measurement. The weave genuinely cuts wind, but nobody has published a tested figure for this jacket and we are not going to make one up.
• No fabric composition: the supplier states none. The old listing on this page claimed microfibre and cotton in one paragraph and cotton and polyester in the next, which tells you it was guessed. We have left it blank rather than pick one.
• It is not a winter coat: there is no insulation in it at all. On its own in the cold you will be cold. It works as the outer half of a layering system, nothing else.
• No size chart supplied: the supplier published no body measurements, so we cannot tell you what chest a size L actually fits. Anyone who prints a number here is inventing it.
• Not every size in every colour: black is not made in M, and khaki is not made in L. Army green is the only colour that runs the full S to XXXL.
• It is not certified workwear: no standard is printed on this garment and none is claimed. It is not flame resistant, not arc rated, not hi-vis, and it is not tested to AS/NZS 4602.1 or AS/NZS 4824. If your site needs any of those, this is not the jacket.

Q & A

Does the hood come off?

It folds down into the collar and zips shut — that much is on the supplier's own detail panel and in the photographs. Whether it also unclips completely is not specified by supplier, so do not order it expecting a fully detachable hood. The old copy on this page called it detachable and we could not back that up.

Will it keep me dry?

No. There is no waterproof rating published for it and no seam sealing shown. A tight weave will shrug off a few minutes of drizzle while you walk back to the ute, and then it will wet through. If you need to stay dry, buy a rain shell instead.

What is it actually made of?

Not specified by supplier. No fibre content is printed on the garment, on the packaging or on any of the supplier artwork. What we can see from the close-up is a fine, tightly woven, quick-drying face fabric with an open mesh inner. That is a description, not a composition, and we are not going to dress it up as one.

Is it warm enough on its own?

No. It is an uninsulated shell. Its job is to stop the wind stripping the heat off whatever you are wearing underneath — put a fleece or a jumper under it and it works properly. Wear it over a t-shirt in a cold wind and you will still be cold, just less cold.

Which size do I order?

Honestly, we cannot tell you. The supplier supplied no measurement chart with this style, so there is no chest or sleeve figure we can stand behind. It is cut as a shell to layer over a fleece, so if you are between sizes the larger one leaves room for what goes underneath.

What is the badge on the jacket?

It is the maker's mark. The garment carries a small moulded rubber monogram badge on the body and a round badge at the cuff, and the supplier's artwork brands the range Mege Knight. It tells you which factory built it and nothing else — it is not a quality mark, not an approval, and not a standard.

Specs