Guide to Urban Techwear
Urban Techwear is the futuristic, dystopian aesthetic centered around living in a city-like environment. Enabling the wearer to liberating movements and functionality that a commuter through an urban jungle would need. This is not to be confused with the whole; technical clothing, which is based solely on providing functional articles of clothing. With this broad definition, it allows designers to skew on what shape technical clothing takes. To remember it simply, technical clothing is broad and doesn’t take any form, urban techwear is just the name of the branch that gives its shape.
Understanding The Technical Wardrobe
Memebranes
The membrane in clothing are designed to give a layer of defense against the environment. Membranes can fall into these two categories: hydrophillic and microporous. Hydrophillic is the love for water, it allows incoming water to permeate the surface and the water below the membrane and allow it to be push outwards. Microporous lets water escape from your body, however its surface is impermeable leaving the user to be dry.
Shells
A shell are commonly referred to as simply as just a jacket, and people that call it this wouldn’t be wrong. At the end of this we hope you’ll appreciate the term shell over calling it a jacket The term shell is used by companies that specialize in technical clothing as it implies a greater layer of protection from outside forces. Such features a shell would come with is water resistant, wind proof, heat retention and more. Shells go into two categories, the hardshell and the softshell
The hardshell is the primary layer of protection, often the most expensive piece to the arsenal. The hardshell provides the most function and durability out of an entire fit. The hardshell membrane would include the basics such as waterproof, wind resistant or proofed, and breathablity.
The softshell, given by its name isn’t as durable as the hard shell, however it does share many qualities. The common trade off between the softshell and a hardshell is ease of use and many functions that would come to wearing a hardshell. Still they retain such attributes likes breathability, heat retention, and protection from wind and water.
Base
Given by its name, the base layer is the absolute bottom layer in any fit. This would include the average: socks, underwear, undershirts, and shirts. In the functional clothing industry they often carry attributes that levitate around making the wearer more comfortable, such things like this include: breathability, anti-bacterial, deordorizing, heat retention, streachable etc.
Merino is a common one in the field, their ability to retain moisture directing it away from the users skin keeping you cool. It's also temperature sensitive, allowing it to keep you cool during the heat it can also change smartly to retain heat when the outside temperature is cold. To top it off with a bow, merino is also very durable and long lasting, however this buying clothes made of merino could be very expensive. Other brands, such as UNIQLO might use a blend of materials to produce layers that aid in function. Companies that do such a thing tend to be cheaper and don't provide the many functions gained by wearing a layer of merino.
