Vander Jacket Adds Colorful Options to the Running Apparel Market

With bright colors, a mix of prints on vintage polyester fabrics and a number of integrated pockets and features designed specifically for runners, Vander Jackets are not your typical athletic wear.

In fact, the jackets are so stylish, designer Sarah Vander Neut is sometimes asked, “Can I really run in this?” She says the comment used to offend her because she was worried that the people asking thought the jacket wouldn’t perform for their workout. Now she takes it as a compliment: “I just tell them, ‘Thank you, that’s kind. Please go get sweaty in it.’”

With an eye for mixing colorful prints and cutting a slimming silhouette, Vander Neut started making her own running jackets in 2011, when she was pregnant and couldn’t find a jacket to fit her needs. She utilized the skills she learned from her mother (a sewing teacher with 4-H youth clubs) as well as her brief stint studying fashion design at Baylor University to make the jackets from scrap materials found at thrift stores.
“I was really limited with my resources. I couldn’t just go to a fabric store and buy fabric; it’s so expensive. So I’d go to Arc [thrift stores] and get cuts of fabric at a discount price," Vander Neut says. "I found that Denver has a huge glut of polyester, which I love to run in.”

She started buying vintage polyester, with all its funky, bright and beautiful prints, which she pieced together creatively. The colorful designs eventually caught the eyes of customers.

“I was selling at Horseshoe Market," she recalls, "and people thought they were really cool.”

After years of creating prototypes to get the jacket just right, Vander Neut officially branded Vander Jacket in 2017. The result showcases not only striking materials, but also a number of features that add functionality for runners.

Silhouette was also a big consideration: Vander Jackets are designed to have a tailored look for a flattering fit. “I’m built like a rectangle; I have no shape,” Vander Neut laughs. “So if I can design something that creates an hourglass look that works for me, I know it will work for somebody else. A fitted jacket never goes out of style, and in Colorado, people want something that looks good, because they literally go from a hike to a bar, or a workout to the grocery store.”
Vander Neut comes from a family of runners. Her dad was a sponsored runner for Nike in the 1980s. “They would send him apparel and shoes, and he would run in them and then write three or four pages on a legal pad about what he thought of the products and send it back to them. Then their lab technicians would analyze how it wore,” she remembers.
So it’s ingrained in her to create athletic wear that performs, and Vander Neut listens to feedback from runners to add features that will serve them well. “We have a watch hole because runners often have these devices that give them all this data on their run, and they don’t want it covered up. They sometimes have one on each wrist, so we have holes on each sleeve,” she explains.

Other features include a back stash pocket for peeled-off layers, snacks and water. “You see a lot of runners with these big vests with pockets and a fanny pack. That drives me crazy!” she exclaims. “I want to be as light as I can when I run. A simple back pocket or two on the jacket you’re already wearing solves that.”

She also adds reflective tape for those who find themselves running in the dark during the winter months, as well as a fitted hood to deal with the ever-changing Colorado weather. And her use of vintage polyester isn't just environmentally friendly; the fabric performs well for running clothes because it's durable, lightweight, non-absorbent and repels UV rays. Vander Neut was happy to give the material a new life.

“The fabric was designed by fabric engineers to last for decades, which ended up backfiring on the fashion industry as being this toxic thing because it never goes away,” she says. “It often ends up in the trash to go to landfills, where it never breaks down.”

Vander Jacket currently carries women's and men's one-of-a-kind jackets and micro-lines of jacket designs in various sizes as well as windbreakers, runners’ tanks, balaclavas and hats; a vest collection will debut in May. The brand has become Vander Neut’s full-time job, and she is proud of the team of diverse women who help her make the line.

While she says she’s always loved fashion design and admits to dreaming of doing haute couture, she’s realistic that there isn’t much need for that in Colorado.

“I want people to be out there wearing my designs. I’m here, I’m married and settled, and I just have to think about what people value and want to wear in Colorado," Vander Neut says. "I’m honored that people are doing the healthiest thing of their day, a workout or a run, in something I made.”

Vander Jacket will be at Horseshoe Market, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 13, 4345 West 46th Avenue. For more information, visit vanderjacket.com.