Rab

For climbers, hikers and cold-weather wear, Rab is widely seen as worth the outlay. The jackets are designed with cold conditions in mind and use high-quality goose and duck down, drawing on founder Rab Carrington's own climbing experience. The brand's focus on lightweight, durable, high-quality gear is exactly why so many owners call it a sound long-term buy.

Both sit in the premium outdoor space, so it often comes down to focus. Rab leans hard into peak performance in harsh conditions with high-fill-power, responsibly sourced down, while Patagonia offers a broader lifestyle range alongside its technical pieces. If your priority is serious mountain use, Rab's heritage as a British climbing and mountaineering specialist makes it a natural pick.

Yes. From its earliest days Rab's clothes have focused on being lightweight, durable and high-quality, a philosophy drawn straight from founder Rab Carrington's climbing background. The brand makes clothing and equipment specifically for climbing and mountaineering, where reliability genuinely matters. That technical pedigree underpins its strong reputation among outdoor users.

Rab is named after its founder, Scottish climber Rab Carrington, who was born in Glasgow in 1947. He devoted himself to rock climbing and mountaineering through the late 1960s and 1970s, taking on expeditions in the Alps and Himalayas. The brand carries his first name and, in many ways, his approach to gear.

It began with a dock strike and a lot of improvisation. On a 1973 expedition to Patagonia, Carrington's climbing equipment failed to arrive from Liverpool, so he stayed in Argentina for six months and learned to make sleeping bags himself. Back home he began hand-stitching and selling bags from the attic of his Sheffield house in 1980, and founded Rab the following year.

Carrington moved to Sheffield because of its closeness to the Peak District, a natural base for a climber. As demand for his hand-made sleeping bags grew, he moved production to a factory in the city in 1981. That proximity to the hills has been part of the brand's identity from the start.

Rab is best known for its down jackets and sleeping bags, alongside expedition wear built for cold weather. These grew directly out of the hand-stitched sleeping bags the founder first sold from his attic. Today they remain the heart of the range and the products most associated with the name.

Rab uses European goose and duck down that is certified to the Responsible Down Standard. To help the down resist water saturation, it applies a fluorocarbon-free water-repellent treatment to the fill used in clothing and sleeping bags. For colder or wetter conditions it also offers synthetic insulation, sometimes combined with down.

Rab is owned by Equip Outdoor Technologies, which also acquired the competing brand Lowe Alpine. Founder Rab Carrington retired in 2007, and the company has continued under that ownership since. The original technical focus on climbing and mountaineering gear has carried through.

It depends on conditions. Rab's down jackets and sleeping bags deliver the best warmth-to-weight for cold, drier outings, which is the brand's core strength. Like nearly all outerwear makers, Rab also offers synthetic insulation, used alone or with down, which copes better with damp; choose synthetic when wet weather is likely and down when you want maximum warmth for the least weight.

Down works by trapping air, so keeping it clean and lofted is key to warmth. Store it loosely rather than crushed for long periods, and wash it sparingly using a down-specific cleaner before drying it thoroughly so the clusters re-loft. Always follow the care label on your specific Rab piece, since treatments and fabrics vary across the range.