K-Way

K-Way's reputation rests on one clever idea: a nylon windbreaker that fits into its own little pouch. Famous for that packable design since 1965, it's a genuinely practical "just in case" layer to keep in a bag for sudden rain. If you want something light, weatherproof and easy to carry rather than a heavy raincoat, that's exactly the niche K-Way invented.

"Le Vrai" is K-Way's heritage windbreaker, the modern descendant of the original idea: a light nylon jacket you can fold into a compact pouch. The whole brand grew from founder Léon-Claude Duhamel's wish to free children from heavy, uncomfortable rain gear with a coated-nylon windbreaker that packed away, and Le Vrai carries that lineage forward.

The colourful zip is part of K-Way's DNA. From the start, founder Léon-Claude Duhamel wanted the windbreaker offered in bright colours with a colourful zip, and that playful detail became the brand's signature look. It's the cue most people associate with a "real" K-Way.

It's French in origin, Italian-owned today. K-Way was invented in 1965 in the North of France by Léon-Claude Duhamel, but after declining it was bought in 2004 by the Italian group BasicNet SpA, based in Turin, which relaunched it as a fashionable product. So its roots are French and its current home is Italian.

K-Way was created in 1965 by Léon-Claude Duhamel, the son of a trouser manufacturer in Harnes in the Pas-de-Calais. The idea reportedly struck him on a rainy day at the Café de la Paix in Paris, when he imagined a small, light and compact form of rain protection.

Duhamel first called his nylon windbreaker "En-cas" (French for "in case" of rain). In 1966, with input from the Havas advertising agency, he renamed it "K-Way" because "way" sounded more fashionable and evoked the American way of life, giving the product an international dimension.

K-Way is owned by BasicNet SpA, an Italian company based in Turin that took over the brand in 2004. BasicNet also owns Kappa, Robe di Kappa and Superga, and it led K-Way's relaunch first in Italy and then a few years later in France.

After huge success, K-Way slid into trouble. From 1988 sales fell as cheaper copies flooded the market; Pirelli bought the company in 1991 when it was close to bankruptcy, and around 1995 the name became so generic that the business shrank sharply. It was eventually taken over and relaunched by Italy's BasicNet in 2004.

Very much so, especially in France. The brand reached its peak at the dawn of the 1980s when Sophie Marceau wore a navy blue K-Way in the film La Boum (1980), influencing teenagers, and from the 1970s more than two million units were sold each year. The word "k-way" even became a generic term for that type of garment.

Yes. From the 1970s the brand partnered with the French Alpine ski team and developed a range of winter-sports clothing, and in 1992 K-Way was a partner of the French ski team for the Winter Olympics in Albertville. So beyond city rain layers, it has real sporting heritage.