When I was 9 years old, wandering around Gordon’s Gateway to Sports in Cos Cob, Connecticut, I came across a bright yellow North Face fleece jacket. Trying it on catalyzed a sort of religious experience, so I pulled the smallest size off the rack and presented it to my parents, hoping it would have the same effect on them. It did not. They refused to be reasoned with, and I proceeded to have a meltdown most people would consider wildly embarrassing. (In this case, most people would be correct.)
In the intervening years, I’ve owned many fleeces. I’ve owned pricey designer fleeces and fleeces that cost less than a burrito on DoorDash. I’ve owned patchwork fleeces and wool fleeces, half-zip fleeces and quarter-zip fleeces, and this one hooded fleece with a diagonal zipper that started at the shoulder and stopped near the belly button. I loved them all equally, but none of them quite filled the North Face-sized hole in my closet. The newer North Face fleece jackets never did it for me the way the old ones did, and even the vintage ones I encountered always had an issue I wasn’t willing to grapple with.
Until recently, when The North Face released a near one-to-one reproduction of the Retro Denali fleece, the exact jacket that terrorized my parents all those years ago. Unlike other meet-your-hero moments, this one lived up to my expectations and then some—and frankly, I should’ve seen it coming.
The Denali’s existence long predates my obsession with it. Originally introduced in 1988 as a key piece of The North Face’s legendary Expedition System, it quickly became a go-to mid-layer for big wall-climbers—some of the most exposure-susceptible athletes in the world—who prized its versatility and lightweight, deceptively toasty fleece. By the time the ‘90s rolled around it was as synonymous with the mundane urban commute as it was the grueling summit push.
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