People have a never-ending love affair with nostalgia. That’s why they reboot old movies, remake old video games, and bring back old fashion. Heck, maybe that’s why you keep getting back with your old girlfriends, too. North Face cashes in heavily on that penchant for nostalgia with their Mountain Light Jacket, a rainy day streetwear icon that they’ve remade in multiple variants over the years. The latest one, called the North Face 1994 Retro Mountain Light Futurelight Jacket, decks it in the outfit’s technical lightweight fabric.
That’s right, the classic jacket gets updated in Futurelight, the outfit’s most advanced material to date. To the unfamiliar, Futurelight is a recycled nylon fabric that’s lightweight and highly breathable while being completely impervious to water, making it the perfect balance of fabric for use in wet and cold weather. Whether you want to wear it for short mountain expeditions, rainy days on the backcountry, or wet days around the city, this version of the garment should deliver a level-up in comfort with the highly-advanced technical material that the outfit made a big fuss about during its introduction last year.
The North Face 1994 Retro Mountain Light Futurelight Jacket uses 40-denier Futurelight 2L for the main shell, with 40-denier polyester mesh and taffeta drop lining to make sure everything’s comfortable underneath. They pair that with 70D Futurelight 2L in high-stress areas of the garment, ensuring the darn thing doesn’t simply scuff up and get damaged during rugged activities. It gets a hood with a two-piece construction that can roll flat and stow away using an integrated Velcro tab, complete with the tension-lock peripheral hood adjustment system found on the original version of the garment.
It gets two storm flaps front and center with an integrated snap closure, as well as an adjustable bungee waist and hem cinch to customize the fit to your liking (and to the amount of layers you have underneath). There are pit zips, in case you need the extra cooling, as well as reverse-entry alpine-style pockets for ant gear you want to carry. Oh yeah, the whole jacket can bundle into the internal chest pocket, in case you need to put the jacket away when the weather has warmed up a bit.
As the name implies, the North Face 1994 Retro Mountain Light Futurelight Jacket takes the 1994 version of the jacket originally released a full decade earlier, so it bears all the hallmarks of 90s clothing. You know, clothes that are wider, longer, and generally baggier than your body’s natural frame because that’s how folks wore their clothing during the period. Yes, we imagine it to be the kind of jacket you wear with a phat pair of JNCO trousers. That means, you might want to order this one size down, unless you want to look like a refugee from the era dominated by wide-leg jeans.
Available in five colors, the North Face 1994 Retro Mountain Light Futurelight Jacket is available now, priced at $349.