When Columbia launched it’s new OutDry Extreme (ODX) range in 2016, the American brand had high hopes for the impact their radical new approach to waterproof-breathable apparel would have on the outdoor active world. It is, as Haskell Beckham – Columbia’s senior director of innovation – recently explained to me, truly ‘a disruptive technology’ that should have taken off. But it didn’t.
There’s a pretty basic reason why OutDry Extreme failed to ignite and excite the outdoor world the first time around, as I’ll explain, but after recent developments that have impacted the whole industry, and ahead of the upcoming launch of a new-look ODX, there are also two good arguments to say it was simply a concept that was ahead of the curve, and its time is about to come. Probably.
