The North Face Is Making Its Iconic Nuptse Puffy Jacket Even Better

Innovative to Everyday and Back Again

The Nuptse has been around for 34 years and is a quintessential winter coat thanks to its enduring ability to perform in cold conditions, but it’s also remarkably trend-proof.

"If you look at all of our Icons they have a consistent theme, they all started as authentic performance products to help our athletes and consumers achieve their goals in the mountains," Patrick O’Sullivan, The North Face's senior design manager of Summit, tells Field Mag.

"Over time each piece organically became part of a broader cultural movement, both in the mountains and the city. It’s not possible to force this adoption as it has to happen authentically, but we hope that grounding the Summit Nuptse in true performance innovation as our lightest and warmest version of the Nuptse yet will naturally build on the jacket's cultural impact."

On the everyday side, the Pertex Reversible Nuptse is designed to bring something new to those who know the Nuptse as the ideal coat for winter, whether there are mountains or not. "Our hope is that the new Pertex Reversible Nuptse resonates with the consumer who knows the Nuptse well, and appreciates that this is the most refined and feature-packed Nuptse we’ve offered to date," says Senior Designer of Outerwear Adam Mueller.

How the New Nuptses Are Different from the Original

The Nuptse is beloved for its silhouette, insulation, and ability to keep moisture and wind at bay, while packing down easily enough to make room for whatever else is needed. The Summit Nuptse retains all of that and brings improvements that make it expedition-grade. "We drew on extensive research and years of correspondence with our athletes to inform the jacket’s design," says O’Sullivan.

As a result, the Summit Nuptse is modified for better range of motion during active pursuits and features a climbing-helmet-compatible hood. It’s the lightest and warmest Nuptse ever made, constructed with recycled nylon and woven ripstop fabric with Spectra yarns to resist rips and tears. It also uses TNF's CLOUD DOWN, designed to reduce cold spots and improve packability. Inside its baffles is 800-fill ProDown, an upgrade from the original’s 700-fill insulation.

The Pertex Reversible Nuptse keeps the recognizable color-block on the shoulders on one side, much like the ’96 Nuptse and Summit Nuptse, while adding a reversible design with a high-sheen finish for a more modern look. The fit remains true to the familiar boxy shape, while Pertex Quantum fabric provides wind resistance and water repellency to improve the thermal efficiency of its 700-fill recycled down insulation.

While the 1996 Nuptse is as unimpeachable as an outerwear piece can be, these two releases are noteworthy improvements. The Pertex Reversible brings new elements to the Nuptse's everyday style, and in the Summit Nuptse you get the best of both worlds: the identical silhouette everyone has grown to love, paired with a few thoughtful revisions that bring it back toward its technical roots. It’s proof there's always a way to make a design 5% better.

And The North Face has made all the right adjustments: the materials are stronger, the jacket is lighter, and the lines between lifestyle and performance are blurrier. That's what made the Nuptse an outerwear icon more than three decades ago.

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