Some of our favourite design ideas start with a very practical problem.
In the case of the CHINOOK, the question was simple: what do you wear when a winter coat is too much, but a sweater isn't quite enough?
Here in Canada, we know first-hand that there are many situations where that particular gap becomes obvious. You might need something warm enough for a chilly morning at the cottage, an afternoon working outside, a trip in and out of a refrigerated space, or simply one of those autumn days when the temperature drops considerably as soon as the sun goes down.
For inspiration, founder Inder Bedi looked somewhere decidedly less glamorous than the fashion runway: Canadian workwear.
More specifically, the freezer jacket.
An Unlikely Source of Inspiration
Traditionally designed for people working in refrigerated environments, freezer jackets are lightweight, insulated work jackets made to provide warmth without the heavy, restrictive bulk of a winter parka.
They're practical by nature. Quilted insulation traps warmth, ribbed collars and cuffs help keep cold air out, and the fit is designed with movement in mind. These are jackets made for people who are working, lifting, carrying and moving throughout the day, and there was something about that practicality that immediately made sense to us.
The original idea for the CHINOOK also grew out of conversations Inder was having with people in our community.
A friend in the food business regularly works around refrigerated storage and was looking for something warmer than a sweater for the time spent in the cold, without having to put on a full winter coat every time.
Another friend spends a lot of time at his cottage and wanted a lightweight layer he could wear while doing jobs around the property, whether that meant yard work, carrying things or chopping wood.
Over the years, we've also had customers ask us about making some version of a chore coat. People who work outdoors or on farms liked the durability and lifetime guarantee of our winter coats, but didn't necessarily need something designed for the depths of a Canadian winter.
All of these conversations kept coming back to essentially the same idea: a jacket that was warm and well made, but still comfortable enough to actually do things in.
Designed for Movement
Movement became one of the most important parts of the CHINOOK's design.
If you look closely at the silhouette, you may notice that the upper arms are deliberately a little wider than you would typically find on a fashion jacket. The extra room gives you a fuller range of movement when you're reaching, lifting or working with your arms, while also leaving enough space underneath for layering.
On a milder day, that might mean wearing it over a t-shirt. As the temperature drops, there's room for a heavier sweater underneath without the jacket suddenly feeling tight or restrictive.
We didn't want to make a beautiful quilted jacket that looked good standing still but became uncomfortable as soon as you tried to reach overhead, carry something across the yard or spend an afternoon working outside.
The goal was to keep some of the freedom and practicality that makes traditional workwear so useful, while refining the shape enough that it still felt unmistakably BEDI.
Realistically, most of us need our clothes to move between different parts of our lives. You might spend Saturday morning working around the cottage and then head into town for dinner later that evening, or wear the same jacket for a chilly walk to work, an afternoon running errands and groceries on the way home.
We liked the idea of creating something that could comfortably handle all of it.
Taking Workwear Into the City
A key part of the design challenge was that we wanted to keep all of the practicality without making the CHINOOK feel overly utilitarian.
At BEDI, we've always believed that function and aesthetics shouldn't have to compete with one another. Some of our favourite design solutions come from looking at something that works extremely well and asking how it could be made more beautiful, more thoughtful, and easier to wear in everyday life.
With the CHINOOK, we kept the classic diamond quilting and ribbed details that give freezer jackets their recognizable character, while refining the shape, materials and finishing.
The silhouette is clean and minimalist, the colours are rich and understated, and the branding is subtle, with a small exterior patch made from apple skin leather. Two exterior pockets and two interior pockets give you plenty of useful storage without adding unnecessary hardware or visual clutter.
The end result sits comfortably somewhere between workwear and a city jacket.
You can wear it with old jeans and boots while working around the cottage, throw it over a sweater for a walk through the woods, or pair it with trousers and a turtleneck when you're heading out for dinner in Montreal.
For us, that's a much more useful version of versatility than owning a different jacket for every occasion.
The Layer Between a Sweater and a Winter Coat
Canadian weather has a tendency to make getting dressed more complicated than it should be.
There are stretches of the year when a winter coat feels like too much in the middle of the day, while a sweater alone doesn't quite cut it first thing in the morning or after the sun goes down. Those in-between temperatures are exactly what the CHINOOK was designed for.
It's lightly insulated and rated for maximum comfort between -10°C and +15°C (14°F to 59°F), making it a useful layer through late summer evenings, crisp autumn days, milder winter weather and the unpredictable weeks of early spring.
Inside, we use premium Isosoft insulation made in Belgium. It provides warmth without adding unnecessary weight or bulk, which helps the jacket keep the easy, flexible feeling that inspired it in the first place.
The exterior is made from ECONYL® recycled nylon, created using regenerated waste materials including discarded fishing nets and carpet fibre waste. The shell is both wind resistant and water resistant, offering protection from the cool wind and occasional rain that so often come with transitional weather.
Ribbed storm cuffs help stop cold air from travelling up the sleeves, while the ribbed collar adds a little more warmth and protection around the neck. The back is also cut slightly longer, giving you a bit of extra coverage when you're sitting, bending or working outside.
These seem like simple details, but they make a noticeable difference once you start wearing a jacket regularly.
Built for Real Life
One of the things we think about a lot at BEDI is how a product will actually fit into someone's life after they take it home.
There isn't much joy in buying something beautiful only to feel as though you have to protect it from everyday wear. We would much rather make pieces that become part of your routine and that you feel comfortable using often.
A good jacket should be able to come along for the commute, a weekend away, an afternoon outside or whatever else happens to be on the agenda. It should have pockets you actually use, materials that can handle the weather, and construction that doesn't make normal wear feel risky.
That's also why the CHINOOK is fully machine washable. There are no expensive dry-cleaning bills and no handwashing in the sink every time it gets dirty.
We also use a durable YKK zipper made here in Montreal using recycled materials. A zipper may seem like a relatively small part of a jacket, but it's also one of the components that gets used the most over its lifetime, so choosing one that can stand up to years of wear matters to us.
Like all BEDI outerwear, the CHINOOK is backed by our lifetime guarantee against manufacturing defects. We want people to be able to wear it often and use it for the kinds of everyday tasks that inspired the design in the first place.
Designed in Canada, for Our Weather
Canada tends to ask quite a lot of outerwear.
We have proper winter, of course, but we also have months of weather surrounding it that are harder to define. Cool mornings turn into surprisingly warm afternoons, sunny autumn days become cold evenings, and spring has a habit of arriving and disappearing several times before it finally commits.
What you need from a jacket also depends on more than the temperature on the weather app. Sometimes it's about what you're planning to do that day, how much you'll be moving, whether you'll be outside for hours or moving between indoors and outdoors, and what you want to be able to wear underneath.
Our winter coats were designed for late fall to early spring. The CHINOOK fills in the space around them.
It's equally at home on a walk through the city, an afternoon at the cottage, a cool morning commute, a bonfire or one of those crisp October evenings when you stay outside considerably longer than you expected.
The inspiration may have come from something as practical as a Canadian freezer jacket, but that's part of what we love about it. Good design doesn't always begin with an attempt to create something entirely new. Sometimes it begins by looking closely at something that already works, understanding why it works, and finding a way to make it fit beautifully into a different kind of life.
