POCKET SCIENCE | WHEN A “BETTER” ZIPPER ISN'T BETTER
One of the hardest parts of designing products for real people is recognizing that the obvious solution is not always the best solution.
At SCOTTeVEST, we have always encouraged customer feedback. Many of our best ideas have come directly from travelers telling us what they needed. More pockets, better organization, improved fabrics, and smarter ways to carry technology have all come from listening carefully to our customers.
Two-way zippers were no different.
For years, customers told us they wanted them. And honestly, the request made perfect sense. When you are sitting on an airplane, in a car, or anywhere else where you are bent at the waist, a traditional zipper can feel restrictive. Being able to unzip the bottom portion of a vest or jacket gives you extra room and makes sitting more comfortable.
So we incorporated high-quality two-way zippers into several of our most popular products. The zippers themselves were not the problem. We have always used premium components, and these were exactly the type of quality hardware we expected to use. We tested them around town for months. They worked great.
The challenge was something we did not fully appreciate at first: two-way zippers require a level of precision and dexterity that is easy to underestimate.
We started receiving customer service calls from people who believed their zippers were defective. Our first instinct was to take care of the customer, so we did what we have always done, we sent replacements. In many cases, we would inspect the replacement product before shipping it out to make sure everything was working properly.
Then something interesting happened.
Some customers would receive the replacement product and contact us again with the exact same issue.
At first, that seemed impossible. We knew the zipper worked. We had tested it. The replacement was not defective. So what was going on?
Then came the epiphany. I was wearing a brand new vest with a brand new zipper. But this time on an airplane, with my vest fully loaded. I finally understood. We rigorously tested these zippers before ever putting them in our vests. But I never tested one rushed, in my seat, trying to figure out how to connect my external battery into my iPad while standing/sitting to let my neighbor in the window seat go to the restroom. Some things are just hard to replicate.
Two-way zippers are simply fussier. Both sliders have to be aligned correctly, and the pin inserted completely before they'll engage. It's easy once you get it right, but surprisingly easy not to get it right. Almost impossible when an iPad is weighing down one side of the vest, and the other side is being pulled back by a seatbelt. While these are 'extreme' conditions for most clothing brands, this is where SCOTTeVESTs are supposed to thrive.
There was technically nothing wrong with the zipper. It simply required more care and alignment than many people expected, or the situation allowed for.
That was the lesson we learned: a feature can provide a real benefit, but the overall customer experience still has to be better.
We knew there would always be some customers who preferred two-way zippers. We understood why. The ability to open the bottom of a vest while seated is genuinely useful. But we had to weigh that benefit against the number of customers who struggled with the feature and the frustration it created.
Ultimately, we decided that the tradeoff was not worth it.
This was not because the zippers were low quality. It was not because we could not manufacture them correctly. In fact, they worked exactly as designed. The issue was that the design itself introduced a level of complexity that did not make sense for our customers.
In some products, we have explored alternative solutions, such as side-seam zippers, which provide additional room and comfort while avoiding the challenges of a traditional two-way front zipper.
But there is no universal answer. Every product decision involves tradeoffs, and the right solution depends on the purpose of the garment and how people actually use it.
After 25 years of designing travel clothing, one thing has become very clear: listening to customers does not always mean giving them exactly what they request. Sometimes it means understanding the problem behind the request and finding a better solution.
That is what Pocket Science is all about.
It is testing ideas, learning from real-world use, and being willing to change direction when the evidence tells us we should.
Sometimes the best feature is the one you decide not to include.
STRANGE MEN | EPISODE 8
THE FERRARI, THE POODLE & THE ART OF GALLIVANTING
By May 2023, my Strange Men experiment had already evolved somewhat. The original premise was simple: travel somewhere with a man I barely knew and see what happened. But Andrew Peterson—better known online as photographer Thomas Hawk—was no longer strange to me. We had already traveled together, and over the years he had become something I really hadn't had since I was young: a best friend.
So perhaps this wasn't technically a Strange Man trip anymore. It was something even better: gallivanting with a friend.
The plan was originally to take my 1974 BMW 3.0 CS on a photography road trip through the Pacific Northwest. Thomas has made it his life's mission to photograph America, which apparently requires photographing approximately every square inch of it. He had researched the route and plotted countless locations where we needed to stop, get out, photograph something, launch a drone, get back in the car and repeat.
Then, shortly before we left, the plan changed rather dramatically.
I had just acquired my dream car: a new-to-me 2017 Ferrari GTC4Lusso. I had spent my entire life loving cars and had never imagined I would actually own something like this. So naturally, rather than ease into Ferrari ownership with a few cautious Sunday drives, I decided almost immediately to load it with three grown men, a Standard Poodle, several days' worth of luggage, enough professional camera equipment to photograph a moon landing, and drive it around the Pacific Northwest.
At the last minute, our mutual friend Robert Scoble joined us. Robert is one of the most relentlessly curious technology people I know and was already deeply immersed in artificial intelligence before most normal people had begun discussing it over dinner. Suddenly our photography trip became something we jokingly called the Ferrari Poodle AI Road Rally.
There was one other last-minute substitution. Sabrina had been scheduled to come but wasn't feeling quite right, so Rhonda got the seat instead. She was healthy, happy and very much up for an adventure.
Robert and Thomas descended on Sun Valley, where we spent a day eating, laughing, hot-tubbing, taking pictures and enjoying whatever limited amount of our nonsense Laura was willing to tolerate. Then we packed the Ferrari.
And packed it.
And packed it some more.
One of the great things about a GTC4Lusso is that Ferrari somehow built a legitimate four-seat, four-wheel-drive V12 grand tourer. We tested the "grand touring" portion rather aggressively. Thomas rode up front with me, while Robert and Rhonda occupied the back. Robert spent so much of the trip crammed into the back with Rhonda that, ever since, when talking to her about him, he's simply been known as “Robert from the back seat.”
For roughly the next week we made our way from Sun Valley through Missoula, Spokane, Seattle, Portland, Baker City and back toward Idaho.
Thomas ran the trip like a photographic military operation. We stopped for abandoned buildings, old neon signs, bridges, endless fields of yellow flowers and whatever else caught his eye.
Sometimes that meant pulling a Ferrari onto a dirt road in the middle of nowhere and repositioning it while Thomas wandered around with a camera looking for exactly the right angle. Then out came the drone.
Rinse. Repeat. Gallivant.
Meanwhile, I mounted a 360-degree camera inside the Ferrari and recorded an enormous portion of the trip. Somewhere on a hard drive exists hours upon hours of three men trapped in a car together debating technology, politics, life, business and God knows what else while a poodle listened patiently from the back seat. Someday I may be brave enough to watch all of it.
We also turned the trip into a rolling SCOTTeVEST road show. In Seattle and Portland we organized casual meetups with customers and fans. I've always loved meeting the people who actually wear the clothes we make, and there is something wonderfully strange about arriving at a customer gathering in a Ferrari with two eccentric friends, a Standard Poodle and enough camera equipment to start a television network.
Somewhere in Portland, I also had the Ferrari inspected. Remember, I had barely owned this car and was still somewhat terrified that every unfamiliar sound might represent a repair requiring a second mortgage. Getting an A-OK was an enormous relief.
Which apparently gave us permission to immediately abuse it.
At one point we followed a Forest Service road that became progressively less Ferrari-like. Pavement disappeared. The road got rougher. Civilization disappeared. Our fuel gauge became increasingly interesting.
Eventually we reached snow blocking the road.
Robert, noting correctly but somewhat unhelpfully that the Lusso has four-wheel drive, suggested that perhaps we should simply continue through it.
I declined.
There is a difference between four-wheel drive and being an idiot in a Ferrari, although admittedly I have occasionally explored that boundary.
We turned around and retraced our path, somehow escaping without a flat tire, mechanical catastrophe or humiliating call for a tow truck explaining why a Ferrari was stranded on a Forest Service road in the middle of nowhere.
By the time we escaped, my almost-new white Ferrari was approximately the color of the dirt road.
And that, in many ways, is what I remember most about the trip.
We ate well. We drank well. We laughed constantly. We got lost. We met people. We argued about things that seemed terribly important at the time and probably weren't. Thomas photographed America. Robert contemplated the technological future. Rhonda happily went wherever we took her.
And I drove the absolute hell out of my new Ferrari.
When I bought the Lusso, it had roughly 21,000 miles on it. Today it has more than 73,000. More than 50,000 Ferrari miles later, I've realized something: I didn't buy my dream car to preserve it for its next owner.
I bought it to have adventures.
That first big road trip taught me something else as well. Gallivanting is an art. You need a loose destination, interesting companions and enough of a plan to get moving—but not so much of a plan that you eliminate the possibility of getting lost.
Preferably, bring a poodle.
And apparently, a Ferrari doesn't hurt.
