Aug 19, 2025 Fashion
Auckland’s not a town for formal winter coats — blame it on the climate, our relaxed affectations or an affinity for driving. Puffer jackets, something the whole country agrees on, are much more our style. Winter delivers a glut of them, donned by a broad church of devotees, and they unite the city in a promise of comfort and protection, providing squishy armour for daily life. We wear them to work and everywhere the weekend takes us, from farmers markets to football games. They go to restaurants — even the fancy ones — and the supermarket, where butter prices are enough to send a chill down your spine. Puffer jackets are stuffed into tote bags on the city’s tertiary campuses, caught in downpours downtown and, tragically, left behind at bus stops. When unseasonal heat surprises the populace, some choose to sweat it out, preferring to wear their puffer as long as possible; others disrobe, sleeves knotted tightly around the waist in a rather tortured effect.
They can be seen in every postcode. Most plentiful and familiar are those of Kathmandu, and they’re the Vogel’s of outerwear. Jackets of all lengths are favoured by the sensible, with the longest and warmest found soldiered together on sports-field sidelines come winter. Mention “Kathmandu jacket” and everyone knows what you’re talking about. The brand was particularly cool in the late 2000s — acquiring one was a rite of passage at my high school in East Auckland — until it was eventually, inevitably, usurped by growing competition and the lure of globalised shopping for Auckland shoppers. And things were changing! Dress codes were relaxing. Streetwear and fashion brands piled into the puffer category and, with the jacket’s association with exercise and utility sprinkled with fashionability, it became de rigueur for communicating an active, modern lifestyle. It helps that puffers are more comfortable than most other outerwear options, too.
For now, the trendiest of all are probably by Taion (or pretenders to their throne), and if you’re not familiar with the Japanese brand by name, you’ll certainly know its flagship product by sight. Collarless with undulating hourglass quilting, they’re fashioned after military jacket liners and filled with down from “waterfowl”, and most commonly found adding warmth to outfits featuring wide-leg trousers and Birkenstock Bostons. With less heft and fewer bulky bits, they’re easier to layer, and perhaps this goes some way to explaining their popularity here.
Fashion brands have developed an ample appetite for puffers — one imagines they’re easier both to design and purchase, with less demand for the rigours of fit due to their forgiving, cushiony nature — and their utility justifies a hefty price point. On Ponsonby Rd, an army-green jacket at Karen Walker catches the attention of one shopper. She seems torn (there are several on the rack to consider) and the label’s not the only local one to choose from: Juliette Hogan, twenty-seven names and Maggie Marilyn make them, too, and you’ll occasionally even spot in the Auckland wild the exaggerated proportions of a number by Entire Studios, the Los Angeles-based brand founded by New Zealanders.
Inflated proportions of outerwear not enough to cosset you? One can buy puffy bags (Cos), house shoes (Macpac), eyewear (Loewe) and laptop covers (Baggu). Potentially all-encompassing, it’s practically a lifestyle — and certainly, in some cases, communicates one.
Sleek-haired, youthful heads adorned with hoop earrings (gold) and impenetrable sunglasses are framed by the plump, down-stuffed collars of their jackets. With aspirational product names like Wunder Puff (Lululemon) and Super Puff (Aritzia), they sound like fortified breakfast cereals — wholesome, trend-driven and marketably practical. And if you’re wearing scrunch-bum leggings then a cropped puffer from Aje is called for (to explain why would be stating the obvious). They’re exercise adjacent, all these jackets, useful en route to the gym or while out for a walk. Though in the circumstance of the latter, they’re outnumbered by an even more practical puffer genus: the vest. Vests may be the most versatile of all puffer incarnations, particularly so in Auckland given our climate, and are worn far beyond walks with the dog.
Having accrued social cachet via such industries as tech and finance, vests are a common sight in central Auckland. Depending on the office dress code and personal preference of the wearer, a snug down vest — usually accessorised with a lanyard and R.M. Williams boots — can be placed atop everything from the omnipresent blue shirt to polos and merino sweaters. Crossing the road on Shortland St recently, I saw a blue suit worn under a cream vest (bold!), while down the hill Working Style were merchandising their vests over smart blazers in the store window. Corporate women, on the other hand, when they do don down — a less-frequent occurrence — go for sleeves: usually neat, diamond-quilted jackets with corduroy collars (Barbour-esque) or collarless dome-closure coats.
Their leisured-life counterparts appear to favour more outré iterations to go with their expensive handbags — puffers in sculptural proportions (Anine Bing), eye-catching colours (Polo Ralph Lauren) or glossy nylon and gleaming hardware (Herno). The husbands, sensible types with tans accrued the old-fashioned way, will usually have the Moncler or Canada Goose emblem somewhere on their torso.
When parsing the ranks of Auckland’s puffers, allegiance can be read from the branding. Many of the most respected are imported, trading on capital earned on the streets of other, colder, cities: Tommy Hilfiger, Champion, Alpha, Dickies, Carhartt, K-Way, Superdry and Arc’teryx. The telltale contrast yoke of North Face sits atop many fit young shoulders. That market segment is also where Huffer made a name for itself in the early 2000s, on people who went to the mountain or just wished they did. The category, a rhyming couplet and cornerstone for the brand, is a big one. Huffer offers more than four dozen SKUs, which you’ll see on everyone from sweet, sulky teenagers to cool dads. Puffer patriotism in three dots.
Visitors to Auckland also favour down-filled outerwear — after all, these garments are far easier to travel with than other kinds of outerwear. Formations of sensible vests tour the streets on foot, while well-travelled jackets trudge uphill to the hostel under bulging backpacks, past people who have been thrust by life on to the sidewalk and into the elements, bundled (if they’re lucky) in a puffer.
[ups/downs sidebar to come]
