How to Repair: Down Jackets

It’s time for another one of our ‘How to’ guides where we give you some tips for how to repair and make the most of your designer vintage clothing. Ensuring that your favourite vintage garms are kept in the best possible condition they can be is a great way to prolong their life even further, do your little bit for the environment and of course, continue looking fabulous. 

So, onto down jackets. Although it may be summer, there are still plenty of opportunities to rep your down jacket, especially if you’re the outdoorsy type. Down jackets have a fantastic warmth-to-weight ratio - fluffy and simultaneously compressible. They also look great, come in many styles and colours and are a staple for many of the adventurers amongst us - once a down jacket has found a place in your wardrobe, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Unfortunately there are down sides to the maintenance of down jackets. Despite being riddled with potential enemies such as cigarettes, flying embers, thorns, rocks, dog claws… (the list goes on), down jackets are truly fabulous items to have - even with the chance of injury! If you do manage to damage your down jacket or have purchased a vintage down jacket which is in need of some repair, you’ve come to the right place! 

Although not the easiest of garments to fix up, it can most certainly be done and we’re going to tell you how. There are several ways in which down jackets can be repaired; depending on how severe the tear/hole/rip is and what items you may have to hand:

Bike Tube Patches
Even though a lot of modern day down jackets are made with tough and tear-proof ripstop fabric, some of the vintage downs do not come quite so well equipped (but can look better in our eyes..!). Whether your down jacket is new or old, it’s super important to nip tears and snags in the bud no matter how small, to protect the very sensitive down and to stop any of the warmth escaping - you also don’t want the hole to get any bigger! If your tear is small enough, you can actually repair it with a bike tube patch. These are super strong, discreet, stay on well and if your jacket is the right colour (dark) blends in perfectly! All you do is simply stick them on over the tear and you’re good to go

Seam Grip
Probably the most inexpensive and effective option to repair a smallish hole in your down jacket, is to apply seam grip to the outer surface of the jacket fabric in order to bond the torn edges to each other. Seam grip is flexible, it adheres well and doesn’t get stiff when it’s cold out, and most importantly, it will stop any of the down from leaking down. If you’re out and about when your tear happens and it can’t wait for seam grip, duct tape will also work. Just be sure to cut your tape quite a bit bigger than the hole and round the corners to decrease chances of it peeling

Repair Tape
This is one of your best options for a larger tear (one that’s bigger than a 10p). Repair tape can be used to fix your down jacket by flipping it onto the back side and using a permanent marker to draw an oval slightly larger than the hole. Cut your tape into the correct shape (a rectangle is fine if your hole is wide) and be sure to round all the edges to avoid peeling! This doesn’t look great and will possibly only work as a temporary fix (although will take some real persuasion to come off!)

Nylon Patches
If you’re looking for an easy option to fix your down jacket that doesn’t look mismatched, you can buy special patches made of polyamide that come in a spectrum of colours. They’re self-adhesive and super easy to use. However, a warning here is that they don’t stick as well as repair tape does as most of the outer material that’s used for down jackets tends to be very smooth. These patches are better suited to rougher down jackets but might be worth giving it a go anyway - just not as a permanent solution.

Use the Manufacturer’s Repair Service
Some manufacturers will offer you a repair service for your down jacket, even if it’s vintage. However, they will charge you for it and often that can be costly! If you intend to use your down jacket for outdoor adventuring, we would recommend going down this route, but if you want your fab down jacket for fashion purposes, this might be a bit of a stretch!

Unfortunately, there aren’t too many DIY permanent options for repairing of down jackets. If you’re not planning on heading out into the great outdoors and will be relying on your down jacket to bat away the hypothermia, sewing your tear is definitely an option but this is really not recommended for you explorers - you will 100% feel the cold through that little sewn patch!