My friend and colleague, Barry Overton, and I bought jackets from NOMAD UK at a recent Country Show. They pride themselves on the quality and longevity of their products, even boasting and displaying clothing that has lasted 1600 days (I think!) on the Scottish Moors which has still kept its windproof and waterproof qualities.
I believe in paying for quality items, so even though the jackets cost £410 each (and I bought one for my wife too!), both Barry and I splashed out.
Saturday saw my jacket’s first outing. It drew several favourable remarks from the assembled guns when we all met up at the start of the day. However, less than one hour later, the popper on the pockets had come off. The popper on Barry’s jacket also came off! Not what you would expect from a £40 jacket, let alone one costing more than 10 times as much. I have a Barbour jacket which I use when I go beating that I purchased in 1981: all the poppers are still working fine after 32 years. NOMAD’s lasted 32 minutes. Not amused.
Both Barry and I have complained today and received a genuine and contrite apology. We were both told that this was the result of poor workmanship in a foreign country. We are to be sent replacement poppers and a tool with which to make good the deficiencies.
We will try this self-help solution before condemning the jackets, not least because we like the coats and the material is just brilliant, being lightweight, stylish, totally waterproof and windproof. But any product is only as good as its weakest link and if, as I fear, we have more popping poppers, I will have no hesitation in returning my 2 jackets and asking for a refund.
We’ll see. The lesson for the future is perhaps for NOMAD UK to have their accessories NOtMADe outside UK. Over to you NOMAD.