After weeks of saying I wanted to go skating, I finally got around to spending Family Day on the ice at Nathan Phillips Square.
It was super fun. Some people were calling me an angel on the ice, an old woman cried, a small child dropped his ice cream because he was so mesmerized by my performance, but please, stop going on about it – that’s not the point.
What is the point, is that, since I knew I would be ice skating, I intentionally did not bring a bag, wanting to free myself for axel jumps, death spirals and what-not on the rink.
The result was that my pockets were so full with phone, wallet and lip-gloss that when I wanted to remove my scarf, hat and mittens (it was -100 degrees that weekend) once I’d warmed up, I couldn’t fit anything in my coat and could barely zip it up.
All of which could have been avoided had I been wearing a North Aware Smart Parka.
Very smart Torontonians have tried to solve the Canadian dilemma of surviving winter without freezing our butts off or losing a mitten in the process. So they’ve come up with a winter coat that has built-in gloves and a scarf, adjustable length for extra chilly days, a hat pouch, and tech pockets so you can store your phone or iPad.
The gloves are super soft, water resistant, and tuck neatly inside the zippered pockets in the coat’s sleeves. A built-in scarf can be pulled across from in the hood to cover your face. Oh, and there’s a spot to stash your toque in the hood.
You can extend the coat’s length for days when you need to cover the tops of your legs, or shorten it if you’re going out and wearing a dress you want to show off.
It’s also been built for two different temperature ranges, so you can remove the lining for spring months or unseasonably warm winter days. Maybe best of all, though, is that it even has a little pocket to fit a tracker tag (something we should all have), so we can locate our coat when we leave it somewhere dumb.
The coat has four styles for women and three for men, and has already far exceeded its $30,000 fundraising goal. The Smart Parka will eventually sell for about $740, but the Kickstarter Price of $395 knocks off the retail margin and will reach you in time for next winter (around September).
You have until March 25 to fund the project and get yourself the Inspector Gadget of winter coats.
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