The biggest difference between fleece and down jackets lies in the warmth that both provide you. While the materials themselves are both extremely breathable and warm, fleece jackets keep you cooler when the weather is warming up; they're the perfect jacket for dewy spring mornings or cool, windy days.
Made of goose or duck plumage, down is the warmest, lightest, and most compressible type of insulation on the planet. Most of the insulated jackets on this list are made with down.
900 fill down is the highest quality down commercially available and considered the absolute gold standard of insulation—with an unmatched warmth-to-weight ratio, it is highly compressible, ultralight and amazingly warm.
It is an undercoating, or a natural midlayer. Nature's best insulation, down creates high-loft clusters that trap air and body heat. In addition to its ability to efficiently trap heat, down is also incredibly breathable, allowing it to wick unwanted moisture away from your body to evaporate.
What about puffer jackets? Why are those so expensive? Because they're made of goose or duck down, and they're tedious as hell to make! “They have these little rooms at the factories that are just filled with down,” Olsen says.
About Down Insulation The structure of down provides warmth by trapping thousands of tiny air pockets. Down is also incredibly breathable, which allows unwanted moisture to escape.
Compared to artificial fibers, down is one of the best insulators of clothing, being lighter and trapping more heat than other materials. Sportswear makers use down in their best jackets because down keeps wearers warm and dry and allows for enough airflow to prevent overheating.
Like we mentioned above, no insulating material beats down in terms of warmth per ounce. Additionally, down is very resilient, and unlike other fabrics or insulators, it will not thin or wear if cared for properly. Fleece and synthetic insulation will lose loft over time, thereby decreasing their insulating qualities.
These jackets (along with your layers) can withstand temperatures up to -5 degrees. Having said that, if you compare the warmth to weight ratio, down jackets are the clear winner. If you have to attain the same warmth as a down jacket, the equivalent padded jacket tends to weigh a lot more.
In short, absolutely. Down jackets made of goose down (the smaller, fluffier feathers underneath the harder exterior feathers) are pound for pound the best insulation against cold temperatures, according to NY Daily News.
