Understanding the Next Generation of GORE-TEX Pro with Claudia Leiner

Since its release in 2006, the GORE-TEX Pro range has become the gold standard for technical performance—revered by mountaineers, skiers and guides around the globe for both its water-resistance and its tough, durable nature.

Nearly 20 years later, the pioneering brand has unveiled the next generation of GORE-TEX Pro products. Swapping out the original ePTFE membrane for a lightweight material known as ePE (expanded polyethylene), it cuts out PFAS* forever chemicals without sacrificing durability.

As you’d expect, it’s technical stuff, so we called up Claudia Leiner from GORE-TEX’s Global Strategic Marketing department to talk us through it—explaining what it is, how they made it, and what it means for the wearer. If you’re looking for a primer on this groundbreaking new product, then you’re in the right place…

I’m interested in the process of how you make something like this—how do you even find something like this new membrane?
That’s a cool question. We’re an R&D company, and we’re basically really nerdy scientists. We’ve been making waterproof jackets for more than 40 years now, so we’ve gained a lot of expertise over that time, especially in working with membranes—we’ve really become experts in creating these special structures.

I’m not sure how much you know on all this, but basically ePTFE is a microporous membrane and we have really really unique capabilities to design and engineer the membrane in a way that no one else does—it allows us to define the pore size or the structure or the surface characteristics.

More than 10 years ago we started to ask ourselves what else we could apply this knowledge to. We had over 50 projects looking at complementary materials—applying the knowledge we already had of these new materials. We always thought that ePTFE was the strongest, so we got super excited when we found ePE. It’s been a long journey—it took another five years until we first introduced it, and now we’ve finally got to the point where we’re introducing it for  GORE-TEX Pro products. The bar for GORE-TEX Pro is set so high we wanted to make sure the standards were right.


What was the next step after finding the new membrane?
There are many, many, many steps—probably more than anyone would ever expect. Even on the R&D side, a development like this can take around five years or even longer. GORE-TEX Pro is an extreme product, so we have to test it in an extreme way, that’s also realistic. It’s not just about doing the most extreme test—it’s still got to be absolutely realistic. So we do a lot of what I suppose you’d call forensic analysis—looking at the field trial garments to try and understand what happened and why they failed. We’ll then replicate that failure mode in the lab—trying to recreate a lab test that simulates that situation to really drum down on things.

We have really, really good relationships with the people that we are testing—we have a very large team of mountain guides with whom we are working with, and they are real gold nuggets for us, because they don’t just come back and say, “This jacket’s destroyed,” they’ll explain exactly how it happened.


How important is that real-deal feedback? How much does that steer what you do?
The feedback we get from the mountain guides is really important. We involve them three times during the development process. When you’re working with something new, it comes with new failure modes—so the guides are there for qualitative discussion, telling us how the garments are performing in a really in-depth way. But then once we’ve done all the refining and testing and we think the product is ready to be in the field, we then test it with 50-100 mountain guides. And here it’s less about qualitative feedback and more about the large signal.

For example, a big customer for us is Arc’teryx, so we’ll do field testing in collaboration with them, looking less at things at a material level, and more at the garment design level. So that means maybe looking at how the hood works with the material. So the feedback is really an ongoing thing.

That makes sense—it still needs to be a performance product.
That’s what’s so special about this. When I talk to people about it, they tend to say, “Oh yeah, it’s PFAS free* now and it has a lower carbon footprint.” but for me it’s really about the combination of achieving that without making any trade-offs in performance.

Quite often when it comes to the sustainability journey, especially in the beginning, there’s often a small trade-off—whether it’s that the colour isn’t as consistent with recycled materials, or the quality isn’t as consistent—so that’s one of the biggest challenges for the industry. We have a unique position in the industry because we lead the performance standard—that’s what we stand for—so that’s not something we want to give up—and we’ve managed not to here.


What I find interesting with these fabrics at this level is that they can really help people go beyond. These developments mean people can push the boundaries at the top level.
That’s an interesting point. I’m not sure if apparel is truly ‘performance enhancing’, but what we hear quite a bit when we get feedback is how much trust people have in their gear. So that enables them to have freedom of mind, and that gives them trust in themselves—they can pursue their activities and really put all their focus on what they're doing in the moment, rather than having to really worry or think about or consider what they're wearing on their body.

I read a quote recently about when “apparel becomes gear,” and I think with GORE-TEX Pro, we’ve done exactly that. It’s not just a fashion item you’re wearing—it’s part of the performance system you need to pursue your chosen activity.


There’s sometimes a fair amount of confusion about waterproof jackets because there’s a lot of technology, and a lot of terminology. This is quite difficult stuff to get your head around. Is it hard to get across what’s going on sometimes?
Explaining what GORE-TEX Pro products do can be a challenge because in many cases, you’re not seeing the membrane—it’s coupled with textiles on either side—so unless you’re seeing a broken down model or a diagram, it’s hard to understand what’s happening.

And then the ‘DWR treatment’ is there to avoid the jacket ‘wetting out’? The fabric is already waterproof, but that then helps keep the rain off. I think there’s often a bit of confusion there.
Quite often people think the beading effect when raindrops hit the jacket is because of GORE-TEX technology, but that’s from the water-resistant treatment. The tricky thing is that human skin has a really hard time separating ‘clinginess’ from wetness—so the moment you have pressure on your skin, it can’t sense whether it’s because it’s wet, or the fabric is clingy. So that’s why people often think their jacket might be leaking—it’s because the surface is soaked and it’s touching the skin. So it’s often a comfort thing—and when that DWR breaks, it feels uncomfortable, but it’s not actually letting water in.


And this is where washing your jacket comes in, isn’t it?
Yeah—people often don’t wash their jackets because they’re afraid of it being ruined, but actually if there’s any material where you don’t need to worry about it going in the washing machine, it’s a GORE-TEX fabric. It’s really important to maintain the performance of the DWR, so we’re doing a lot of wash and care events at the moment to help everyone understand this. At the moment we won’t stop talking about it!


Is there a specific way to wash the next gen GORE-TEX Pro products?
Yeah, there’s a bit of a technique. In general any wash is better than no wash. It helps the membrane if you wash it often—but then for the DWR finish, there’s a bit of a trick to reactivating it after washing. Basically you need to apply heat, but only once it’s dry.

It’s not enough to wash the jacket in a washing machine and then directly throw it into a tumble dryer—because the dryer will stop the moment the jacket is dry. It’s difficult to explain, but the jacket has to be dry before you apply heat to reactivate the DWR—the garment needs some time to experience the heat while it's already dry.

That makes sense. Wrapping this up now—after working on this project for so long, how does it feel now that it’s finally getting released?
That’s an interesting one. On one hand I’m proud, and I’m super happy, but then because I’m always working on the next thing, it’s hard to stop and realise that we’re just launching this stuff now. In my mind I’m always five or six years ahead—I’m already thinking about what we’re launching in 2030!

* Made without intentionally added per- and polyfluorinated substances; may contain trace amounts.

** through the laminate’s innovative membrane and select textiles (per Higg MSI).