Guide to Urban Techwear

We wear clothes to be comfortable, to cover up our shame, and more importantly for our protection. Technical clothing, focuses on incorporating functionality through the use of textiles and construction techniques. This is a very broad definition, when you mention clothes a wide array of different designs will come to mind and its the goes the same with technical clothing, although the fashion community likes to lump technical clothing into this one style. This idea that it's a futuristic military style, but that's just not the case. Conroy Nachtigall a former designer of Arc'teryx Veilance explains creating technical clothing as: "It's not thinking about zippers is not thinking about seem tapes, not thinking about ... all these little elements. Those are all part of the end goal"

Understanding The Technical Wardrobe

Memebranes

The membrane in textiles 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 to be push outwards. Microporous lets water escape from your body, however its surface is impermeable leaving the user 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 the outside. Such features a shell would come with is water resistants, wind proof, heat retention and more. Shells go into two categories, the hardshell and the softshell

The hardshell is the primary layer, 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 the common material in this field, merino wool is wicking and a natural temperature regulator, very durable and long lasting, however 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 practice such things tend to be much cheaper and don't provide the many functions gained by wearing a layer of merino.