Recommended Price: £275 (£255 without hood)Weight: 435g (S) This retro-styled mid-warmth down jacket is part of Fjällräven’s new Expedition range. An extremely cold night in a snow hole bivouac in 1974 inspired company founder Åke Nordin to come up with the original Expedition jacket – basically two down jackets sewn together. I’ve been using some recent cooler weather to check out this modern product of the intervening four decades. Constructed with wide sewn-through baffles, the insulation consists of 110g of down (90% warmer goose and 10% duck) with 700 fill power and a reinforcement of synthetic padding at the shoulders.…

Usual Price: £229 (currently on sale)Weight: 545g (men’s large) The Definition is Alpkit’s top of the range mountaineering jacket. On handling, you can immediately tell this is a serious hardshell; the fabric feels quite stiff and very robust and the fit is quite generous. The Definition feels like a waterproof built to inspire confidence that it will cope with the toughest conditions Scotland can offer. The fabric is a 3 layer laminate, with a nylon inner and outer, enclosing unbranded waterproof membrane. It may be the latter that is key to the very competitive pricing, but the specs show high…

Recommended Price: £220Weight: 185g (large) The Flashpoint 2 is a truly ultralight waterproof jacket. Weighing in at just 185g in men’s size large, the jacket squashes into a tiny stuff sack and is barely noticeable in your pack; runners could even simply attach it to a belt. So where are the compromises? The fabric is 3 layer Pertex Shield. I’ve found it to be surprisingly breathable, and it also seems pretty robust for the weight. I’m sure these qualities are partly down to it having 3 layer construction – I typically find 2 and 2 and half layer waterproofs feel…

I’ve been testing the revamped 2019 version of Alpkit’s Phantac down jacket, which is designed to keep you really toasty whilst keeping weight low.

Price: £190 (currently on offer for less with various retailers) Weight: 420g (women’s 10) I’ve worn a Microlight Alpine down jacket both on the hills and in town for the past 3 winters. It’s a versatile jacket that has proved harder wearing than I expected and I anticipate having several more years wear out of it. The jacket has had a redesign for its 10th anniversary so I was keen to check out the new version as well as giving my long-term verdict on the original design. The jacket is made from an outer of water resistant Pertex Quantum material…