Constable Jodyne Keller and Arc’teryx’ Joanne Mayzes give Brian Woods a cape.

The trunk of Constable Jodyne Keller’s unmarked police cruiser is packed full of handouts for the area’s homeless population as we cruise the damp, early-morning streets of Vancouver’s West End. We’ve made stops at park benches and bus stops, distributing the contents — waterproof, insulated capes — to the community’s most disadvantaged when Braeden Van Ree spots us. Van Ree isn’t on Keller’s list to receive one of the units; in fact, the clean-cut engineering technologist is likely on the opposite end of the spectrum. And yet, he’s familiar with the top-quality materials used in these capes, because they’re the exact same as those in the expensive jacket he just bought.

Van Ree dashes inside to retrieve his coat for us, his enthusiasm betraying the potential value of the handouts. Though unbranded and not marketed whatsoever, they come from the same manufacturer as his jacket, high-end outdoor apparel makers Arc’teryx, whose garb graces some of the world’s top athletes, skiers, and climbers. If you could buy one of the capes, it would probably cost at least $500.

But you can’t buy one. For the past four years, Arc’teryx has quietly run an annual cape-making outreach program, called the Bird’s Nest Project, for the area’s homeless community. Surrounded by water and mountains, British Columbia is known for difficult winter conditions, and when it gets nasty out, the conservatively estimated 1600 homeless people in Vancouver have to either find solace in one of the city’s shelters, or brave the elements on their own. Exposure to the cold is part of the challenge, but it’s the rain and snow that really makes things dangerous for the people living outdoors.

So Arc’teryx employees stepped up to help in the unique way they can, volunteering to help fashion and sew the waterproof, insulated capes designed by the company’s designers and pattern makers. And while many Arc’teryx owners gather on message boards to discuss and list the details of each of the company’s item that they possess, you won’t find these capes cataloged on any of these — the only way to get one is if you can’t afford it.

Van Ree eyes the capes. “They look pretty sweet.”

Getting started

Arc’teryx established its brand through innovation. Launched as “Rock Solid” in 1989 by David Lane, with partner Jeremy Guard coming on board in 1992, the company started with the idea that they could create a more comfortable rock climbing harness than the decidedly non-ergonomic girdles climbers had been wearing. Guard, a nonstop tinkerer, developed a way to laminate the harness’s materials together, allowing it to be to molded to naturally fit a climber’s legs and waist. It’s a design all climbers use nowadays, but at the time, their revolutionary redesign helped the company get off the ground.

The Vapor Harness led them to move into backpacks utilizing the same molded, laminated technique, and within a couple years they were selling their accessories to major outdoor retailers.

Then one day in 1995, Guard headed off for a ski trip in Colorado. Described as the type that always has to have the best gear, not unlike the customers that Arc’teryx now services, Guard reached out to his skiing friends for tips on what equipment to buy for the trip. What he found left him unsatisfied, saying “I just paid $450 for this, and I can do way better.” So he put together a team and spent the next two years on the company’s next innovation.

The jacket they created featured what is now one of Arc’teryx’s biggest contributions to the apparel world: watertight zippers. Jackets like the one Guard bought on his ski trip had typically used fabric flaps over zippers where water exposure might happen, always one of the more problematic areas for keeping out moisture. Guard’s team developed a way to increase water resistance by coating the zipper in urethane and then seamlessly affixing it to the jacket using the laminating technique they had developed for their Vapor harnesses. They then cut bulk by ditching the flaps, trimming seams close to the fabric, and using thinner-than-standard strips of laminating tape to seal them. The result, with its lower weight and increased flexibility, immediately caught the attention of the outdoors community, and pushed the company from a climbing and backpacking manufacturer to an apparel maker.

The founders eventually sold the company to Adidas-owned Solomon, which Adidas later sold to Finnish sporting company Amer Sports. Arc’Teryx itself, however, didn’t stop pushing the apparel technology forward, a trait that its customers have come to expect. They’ve partnered with various material suppliers, demanding stringent performance in order to optimize breathable, waterproof materials that should last for a decade of use. They’ve created “fusion points” to affix compression straps directly to the fabric of their backpacks, rather than having to sew them to the seams, allowing for optimized strap placement. They created the first compact-fitting GoreTex gloves. They’ve even worked on creating the perfect shade of grey to better camouflage police and armed forces — a sizable portion of their customer base — in urban environments. Throughout the company, the unofficial motto continues to be “we can do this better.”

Jackets on display at one of two Arc’teryx retails stores — although more are coming.

Despite their quest for innovation, Arc’teryx left a few early opportunities behind, namely registering patents for their inventive methods. Those water resistant zippers stand out as one of their biggest misses. They continue to purchase zippers from YKK, one of the industry’s largest zipper manufacturers, and coat them in-house; meanwhile, almost all of their competitors have copied the technique and now use it in their jackets and bags as well. YKK even carries them pre-made now, having built that specific arm of their product line into $800 million a year in revenue. Arc’teryx’s entire company, on the other hand, is slated to make $220 million in 2012 (up from $16 million in 2002).

The crowded design floor of Arc’teryx’s current headquarters. A new HQ is under construction.

Making machines

Perhaps some of these early misses are part of the reason I’m directed to not pay as much attention to the machinery lining the room inside their factory during this year’s final cape sewing day (where I learned, among other things, that sewing a straight line is very, very hard). Those machines, primarily large, Frankensteined industrial mashups, are specifically built to achieve many of the innovations that Arc’teryx is known for. The machine shop that fabricates these tools is as much a part of the process as the factory’s skilled sewers are.

Carefully cutting a stack of GoreTex inside Arc’teryx’s North Vancouver factory. Look at the size of that motor!

“If you want to be on the cutting edge of making stuff, you’ve got to be on the cutting edge of making machines,” Arc’teryx’s hardgoods manager David Gardiner says during a workday visit to the factory. Some of these tools are simple machines that pull unnecessary threads out of nylon webbing, allowing their newest line of harnesses to spread the weight of the climber over a much wider and more comfortable area while further reducing weight and bulk. Others involve establishing the right conditions to permanently press and laminate multiple materials together. The factory is largely devoid of automated machinery, as well; workers cut stacks of expensive GoreTex by hand using industrial vibrating saws that look like they were built from a big rig starter motors. The precision is impressive — costly slip ups rarely occur.

For a tighter finish, the company uses 1/16" stitching, as opposed to the 1/8" industry standard.

In-house cape making

The company’s volunteer sewing dates occurred three times through the Fall this year, but may expand moving forward, especially with corporate social responsibility manager Joanne Mayzes helping oversee the project. She is eager to get other apparel companies to participate, having received requests from organizations as far away as New Hampshire. But while some of the bigger competition like North Face have just as much excess material as Arc’teryx does, she notes that none have their own local factory where employees can work after-hours.

Working from the Arc’teryx factory, employees volunteer their weekends to make the capes.

Mayzes is also reluctant to assign a price to the capes. They’re not branded with Arc’teryx’s name or fossil-inspired logo. They use more of the expensive GoreTex and ThermaTech than the company’s jackets, but those materials come from rolls of discontinued colors or upgraded materials — signs of the growing success of the company — meaning they have written off the components already. And until recently, Arc’teryx has avoided too much awareness about Bird’s Nest, simply stating that the program is just something they do, said with the same Canadian purity that you notice in Tim Horton’s coffee and the curling broadcasts playing on their sports networks.

Mayzes has been a part of Bird’s Nest since its launch in 2009, and has recently stepped into a leadership role for the program. One of her biggest developments this year was partnering Bird’s Nest with the Vancouver Police Department — something that she felt necessary after seeing some of the capes go to less-needy recipients in previous years.

“There were people that weren’t necessarily living in the streets, or weren’t the people that are in and out of shelters even,” she says, telling me about previous years’ distributions that occurred through a few of the area’s shelters and charities. When the VPD reached out to Arc’teryx after last year’s program, both parties agreed it would be a good relationship for getting the capes to those who most need them.

On the streets

Constable Keller is Vancouver Police Department’s main liaison with the homeless population. She’s at the same time youthful, motherly, and commanding. Her blue police coat, made by Arc’teryx as well, looks like it just came off the rack despite being five years old. As we pass through the streets near the new Olympic stadium, her complete concern for the people in her area becomes very evident.

We approach a man seated in a park by English Bay. Keller calls him Brian as we approach, and offers him a red, insulated unit.

His face lights up when he sees it. “I’ve been trying to get one of those — I’d love one.”

Keller has an uplifting conversation with Brian before we move on, distributing the trunk full of capes throughout the morning with similar experiences and care at each stop. We meet people young and old, mostly familiar faces to her, but some new ones as well.

Late that night, I go out for a midnight drive, and head back to one of the areas we had stopped earlier that day, a few blocks from the main road of Olympic Village. There, as cold sheets of rain sweep their way up the empty streets, I find 43-year old Vincenzo Dane resting in a carport, bundled between blankets and a bare foam pad. A compact TV set sits on the asphalt, its power cord plugged into the outlet of the building he’s sheltering next to. He watches the screen with his head resting on his new carefully rolled-up dark green cape, given to him by Keller the day before.

One of the cape recipients shares his appreciation with Constable Keller.

I strike up a conversation, and he’s happy to chat. He tells me he’s been homeless since a losing his wife in a house fire nine years ago, so uncomfortable now with being indoors that he even refuses to go inside the area’s shelters during wintertime. He is thrilled about the cape, and offers me a couple ideas for improving the design.

“Maybe some clasps or some velcro on the bottom,” he suggests, speaking from his bed, “because sometimes it’s windy, like right now, and sometimes they flip over, and when it’s raining, they’re going to get wet. Other than that, they’re just wonderful. They’re just really wonderful.”

We talk for a while. Then I wish him a good night, and head back into the rain. It’s going to be a cold winter out there.

Note: This is an article I wrote in the fall of 2012 and recently recovered from a lost computer. My understanding is Arc’Teryx no longer offers this program, but the work they’ve done is worth commending regardless. — Mike