The Best Parkas for Men in 2023

Eddie Bauer’s Superior Down Parka ($349) has over 800 reviewers lauding its greatness at 4.5 stars. This caught our attention. After wearing it around town in the low double digits, we began to understand why.

The Superior Down Parka has 650-fill down — a quality, middle-of-the-line down. But EB uses a lot of it, which makes this jacket one of the warmest city-friendly parkas we tried.

The parka drapes over the hips for true winter coverage. The two-way front zipper allows you to unzip the jacket from the bottom, making retrieving your keys and wallet a little easier. We do wish they stopped the zipper closer to the waistline. It can be a little hard to engage the zipper.

The sleeves end in a wonderful ribbed cuff. It feels like a sweater and keeps the cold from creeping in. It also pairs well with gloves, which fall between the outer sleeve and cuff. Another plus: the dual insulated hand pockets and laid with cargo pockets and offer plentiful storage.

This is one of the best winter parkas you can get for the city. It’s often on sale, making it very attractive for buyers on a budget.

Marmot’s WarmCube system pulls off the same design trick that gridded fleeces are prized for. They’ve just scaled it up. By baffling the 800-fill down in fat gridded cubes, warmed air is trapped in puffy down pods and channels between the cubes.

The Golden Mantle ($650) layers a sewn-through baffled jacket over the cubed insulating layer, reducing the cold spots found in most sewn-through jackets. The result is double the dose of insulating warmth.

The Golden Mantle Parka protects the wearer from the elements with a “windproof” GORE-TEX membrane, rated at 10K/10K. For additional protection, the 700-fill down is treated with Marmot’s Down Defender, helping maintain the down’s loft when wet.

The parka’s thigh-length cut crops is perfect for severe weather. It overlaps the pant line and extends almost to the knee. It keeps the core, butt, and thighs warm in equal measure.

We found the Golden Mantle exceptionally warm and highly recommend this parka for casual wear around town. It isn’t cheap, but it’s frequently on sale. Plus, it seriously eases the strain of living through bitter winters.

True to the Arc’teryx aesthetic, the Therme ($700) is the embodiment of elegant design. Embracing its mountain laurels, it oozes an urban aesthetic without being over the top.

The svelte silhouette has a touch of room to layer over a long-sleeve shirt or a thin sweater. A single chest pocket rides inside the jacket. Two uninsulated hand pockets are concealed behind storm flaps, as is the front zipper.

To prevent stiff winds from breaching your winter walk, Arc’teryx reinforced the front flap with three snaps around the chin and a single snap at the bottom of the zipper.

Trending more urban than its mountain pedigree, the arms drop to the cuffs with a clean finish, with no hook-and-loop tabs to batten down the arms. Instead, a soft internal cuff prevents warm air from spilling out the sleeves.

One of our favorite design additions is the integrated neck draft tube. It’s the kind of detail you find in high-end sleeping bags, and it prevents heat from chimneying out the top when the hood is pulled down.

High-quality, 750-fill down baffles are mapped to where the body needs to hoard warmth most. Synthetic Coreloft insulates regions that tend to sweat or are exposed to more moisture (the cuffs, hood, and under the arms).

Insulation lines the entire jacket and is protected under a GORE-TEX shell, making this our recommended jacket for users who want that mountaineering level of protection in a more metropolitan-friendly package.

With clean, form-fitting warmth and full storm protection, Arc’teryx’s Therme isn’t the warmest jacket on the “bird’s” roster (nor on our list — Fjallraven’s Nuuk is up to $200 less). But if your winters are cold and wet, the Therme is a very enticing option.

What separates a down parka from its down jacket siblings? Coverage and the amount of insulation.

Black Diamond’s Vision Down Parka ($465) is filled with nearly 8 ounces of 800-fill down. Over a third of the jacket’s weight is composed of high-quality, heat-trapping fill.

The oversized jacket layers easily over a fleece or shell and extends below the hips, adding fantastic coverage for a backcountry parka. A double zipper allows easy access to the harness.

The dry down is resistant to moisture and is contained through sewn-through baffles. Sewn-through seams will never be as warm as a fully baffled jacket.

A fully baffled jacket’s exterior and interior walls are separated by a shelf, effectively boxing in the down. Regions in a sewn-through jacket will eventually let the cold creep in, but the Vision’s down tubes are fat and keep the cold at bay.

Like any backcountry jacket, there’s a tradeoff with weight and durability. Black Diamond understands this. The entire jacket is wrapped in an ultra-tear-resistant polymer the same yarns used in the Black Diamond’s Vision harness.

It’s the little things that we like in this parka. The hood is large enough to wear over a helmet. The single drawcord in the back does an exceptional job of snugging the bare head. And instead of Velcro cuffs, the wrists have a fat elastic band that gently snugs around the wrist.

The hand pockets are lined with microfleece — a detail that often gets overlooked in a backcountry parka. And two generous sleeves line the inside, ready to swallow a pair of oversized mitts.

Tough, warm, lightweight — the Vision Down Parka is a great parka for belaying ice climbs or cold urban adventures.

Winter expeditions, meet your match. A small Seattle company, Feathered Friends is synonymous with mission-driven, quality expedition gear.

The Khumbu ($729) is the pinnacle product of Feathered Friends’ cold-weather parkas. This is a parka that athletes sponsored by other brands bring on the mountain, duct-taping out the Feathered Friends logo.

It starts with the down. The Khumbu’s 900-plus-fill goose down is near the tip-top of down available. Sure, 1,000-fill is available, but filling the Khumbu with it would price most buyers out, and it’s exceptionally difficult to source.

And it’s not just the down’s ability to loft; it’s that they stuff the fully baffled jacket with over 13 ounces of it. Some of our best picks for an entire down jacket weigh less than the fill alone used in the Khumbu. And all of them are goose down of lesser quality.

All of the down is tacked under the waterproof/breathable shell rated to 20K/20K, baffled by a 1.5-inch spacer. This box baffle completely separates the inside from the elements outside. You’re wearing a parka with the effectiveness of a sleeping bag.

Filling the collar — the area where heavy breathing can cause moisture to condense and cold to creep in — the Khumbu uses expedition-weight, 200g PrimaLoft Gold. The entire jacket zips not once, but twice, creating a baffled zipper. The draft tube zips inside the jacket, and the jacket overlaps to zip up weather-tight.

All this said, the jacket is minimal by design. The hood is oversized, there are two mesh internal pockets, two insulated hand pockets, and a single chest pocket. The wrists close with a Hypalon-backed Velcro tab.

Simplicity means fewer potential points of failure. After all, reliability (and warmth) is all that really matters when you’re hanging it all out on the line … some 20,000 feet above the Arctic floor.

We’ve been wearing Tentree’s affordable Daily Parka ($328) on a regular basis all winter. It’s become a reliable staple in our wardrobe — it’s warm, waterproof, and stylish.

This parka is the perfect length, and it’s well-appointed with handy features. It’s a roomy yet fitted outer shell, complete with handwarmer pockets, elastic inner cuffs, and a bomber storm hood. The sleek monochrome styling goes well with nearly any outfit — aesthetics are on point here.

What makes this jacket sing, though, is its synthetic insulation. The Daily Parka is packed with 100 g of top-shelf PrimaLoft Black. It’s used across the jacket and is punched up in the torso. It’s warm and packable and incredibly soft for a synthetic jacket, approaching down standards of softness.

For parka shoppers on a budget, the Daily is an excellent value.

In our experience, the PFC-free DWR-treated outer shell repels water and snow — we haven’t noticed any moisture seepage.

This is not a technical parka. We recommend the Daily Parka for in-town use, especially in areas where it helps to look good.