The Men’s CO2Renu Lumos from Craghoppers is a universal fleece described as being an insulating jacket, writes Mike Gormley.
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I took this Craghoppers fleece jacket as a bit of a last-minute warm top for my recent visit to Morocco, really thinking it would not get a lot of use but would be good for travelling and if the evenings happened to be a bit cool. As it turned out, I wore it a great deal and in many ways was extremely pleased to have it on this trip.
This is a really easy wearing fleece jacket and well set up with mostly zipped pockets, so is perfect for travelling to / from airports and flying, to any other form transport and for general use. The CO2Renu material (a Bio3 carbon smart polyester) seems to be good at keeping you warm and feeling cosy but, importantly, not too hot and uncomfortable as the ambient temperature rises making this jacket very ‘wearable’ in ever-changing situations.
It is of easy wear design to enable flexibility of movement and the front zip will bring the quite generous collar up around the neck if you need a bit more wind and cold protection. The pockets are great, being of generous size so very practical; especially when travelling and you need to keep multiple items both handy and secure. Two zipped side pockets, which also double as hand-warmers, are complimented by a really good chest pocket. There is a usable ‘patched on’ arm pocket, which is handy as it is easy to access if strapped into seats and it is sized to take a phone. There are also two, perhaps you can say four as each is divided, inner ‘poacher’ style pockets; these are able to take a water bottle or perhaps gloves or maps and keep them secure.
¤ The side pockets are of good size and make useful hand-warmers [©JG]
The hems, upper sleeve pocket and, importantly, the shoulders have a reinforcing layer of recycled polyester to improve longevity and increase overall robustness, especially if carrying a rucksack or so on.
The fleece material is the now quite well-known CO2Renu, made by a clever process to generate material from CO2, so overall the percentage of recycled materials is high in this jacket. The colour I have is called Boulder but this jacket is also available, sized from S to XXL, in more tactical Black.
I am sure the Lumos will be one of those jackets that will last for years and the zips on this one are good and robust and easy to use. Even if these do, eventually, fail you can have these repaired under the Craghoppers guaranteed for life repair scheme… but more on this another day.
[images © Jean or Mike Gormley]
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