Columbia, an outdoor sportswear company based out of Portland, Oregon, has given us quality Star Wars-themed apparel before, but this newly released Empire Strikes Back parka takes the cake. The parka is nearly a mirror design of the jacket that both cast and crew wore for the filming of The Empire Strikes Back. StarWars.com posted pictures of Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Irvin Kershner (Director) all wearing the parka on location in Norway.
There’s four distinct patches in and around the jacket: The “Darth Vader In Flames” chest patch, “Norwegian Unit” patch, the Star Wars logo on the sleeve and a patch inside indicating the map coordinates of the Hoth filming location. Columbia is also providing a customizable name badge on which you can add your own name to Empire crew.
Besides the incredible theming and glorious details, you know this thing is going to be top notch in terms of quality. The outside of the jacket is breathable, yet very waterproof and the inside is filled with 200g insulation. They’ve also implemented their Omni-Heat™ thermal-reflective lining which basically bounces all of your body’s heat back onto itself. If only Han Solo could’ve slapped one of these on Luke Skywalker instead of sticking him inside a Taun-Taun.
Included in the $500 price tag is a custom-built collectors box housing both the jacket and some Star Wars themed tags and a flyer. And if all this wasn’t exclusive enough, there’s going to be 30 pieces sold that were signed by Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. These will retails for $1,980 (We’ll let you guess why that number’s significant) and will only be released at four Columbia locations: New York, NY; Buena Vista, FL; Downtown Portland Flagship, OR; and Seattle, WA.
This is going to be highly coveted and sought after Star Wars collectible so you’ll need to plan out your purchase ahead of time. The jacket goes on sale December 6th at 9:00pm (PST) online and in Columbia stores on December 7th. They have all their brick and mortar locations listed on the product page.
Empire Crew Parka Product Page