Read the entire article- Vanity Fair’s “Official Preppy Reboot”

Excerpt from True Prep-
If, in 1980, you had whispered to friends that within the next few decades America would elect a thin, black, preppy, basketball-playing lawyer to be president, they would have laughed at you and exhaled in your face, inside the restaurant or club where you were sitting. And, if you predicted that one day all our children would have little portable phones stuck in their pockets so that they could not answer us when we called them from our little phones, we would have again exhaled in your face—indoors—and said you were talking science fiction.

The revolution began in 1981, at a company then called Malden Mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts, manufacturers of textiles including the wool for uniforms in World War II. A place like Malden Mills is populated by textile engineers who spitball, “mess around with fabrics,” and then refine, according to spokesman Nate Simmons. They work collaboratively with clothing manufacturers, as they did in this case with Patagonia. What came off the looms in the early 80s was pure synthetic, soft, quick-wicking, quick-drying, and machine-washable. It did not fade, and changed the wardrobes of athletes forever. Its Malden name was Polarfleece; its Patagonia name was Synchilla.

The new book also sites some new “Prep Careers for the New Millennium”, included in which is ‘Ski Bum’, a profession we are proud to associate with, alongside anyone working hard to support days off on rock, in rivers, on the slopes or anywhere else that requires a little less popped collar and a little more, “Where the hell are we?”

Yvon Chouinard product testing

In late April, Kent State University’s New York Design Studio held its tenth annual edition of “Stretch to the Future,” one of the longest-running fashion design competitions sponsored by a fiber company. Created in 1999, the “Stretch to the Future” Design Scholarship Competition inspires the creative development of design students while educating them about the technical aspects of garment construction using fashion fabrics containing a highly technical fiber.

This year’s winners were selected from a field of 51 students — 20 more than last year’s entrants. The students competed with garments designed in stretch fabrics containing RadiciSpandex RadElast® spandex donated by Polartec and a number of other fabric manufacturers.

The contest was judged by a panel of industry experts, headed up by Jeffrey Chow, Creative Director for contemporary womenswear label Poleci and also included members of the charitable organization The Underfashion Club (UFC), which returned for a third year as sponsor of the contest’s lingerie award. The judging panel selected scholarship winners in the categories of eveningwear, activewear, swimwear, lingerie and an overall grand prize.

Both the activewear and lingerie category were won with Polartec fabrics. Bethany Clark won the activewear category, and Phillip Fry emerged as the lingerie category winner with a bra-and-panty set featuring a combination of Polartec and TBD Tecidos fabric. Check out the winning garments below.

Our very own Global Director of Design, Allison Spahr, also had a seat on the judging panel alongside other industry experts. Although a spot on Project Runway’s celebrity judging panel may be a long way off, we have Allison practicing her Heidi Klum attitude and “auf wiedersehens” just in case. Congratulations to the winners of this year’s competition!

Big Wall Cribs with Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson on El Capitan from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

We’re going to be giving away more stuff here on a regular basis, so be sure to keep checking justazipper.com.

(click to enlarge)

For many years the outdoor industry has relied upon the Water Vapor Resistance or RET (Resistance of Evaporation of a Textile) test to measure the “breathability” of water resistant/waterproof fabrics. This test,”compare(s) the ability of different materials to dissipate moisture vapor from the body of the wearer to the outside.” (WSA Jan/Feb2010)

However, in our opinion, the RET test (ASTM F1868 -09) does not accurately evaluative the true breathability of a fabric. In fact, “studies have confirmed that the test is predominantly influenced by the fabric thickness, rather than the pore characteristics of the fabric.” For example, the RET test yields a result that says a three layer hard shell/waterproof fabric is more breathable than a 200 weight fleece. Anyone who has ever worn either of these fabrics knows that’s not true – fleece is almost infinitely breathable (hence the reason Polartec has created other more wind resistant fabrics over the years). In addition, RET tests are affected by clothing weight, drape and tightness. Perhaps most importantly, RET not allow any air movement during the test, so you get some truly bizarre, lab-only results.

Another standard test used by the textile industry to measure breathability is Moisture Vapor Transfer Rate (MVTR). MVTR measures how much moisture vapor can pass through fabric in a 24-hour period and there are over 30 different tests to assess this transfer rate. However, these tests can yield wildly different results (as chronicled in this great post on Patagonia’s blog) and like the RET test, MVTR is static and does not account for real-world conditions where air flow is always present.

As an alternative, Polartec is promoting a better means of evaluating the breathability of water resistant and waterproof fabrics. The Dynamic Moisture Permeation Cell (DMPC) is an ASTM standard test that evaluates a fabric’s ability to move moisture vapor in dynamic conditions. The test can change air pressure and humidity on each side of the fabric and measure how well it truly breathes as conditions change (like the real world). DMPC was developed by Dr. Phillip Gibson, a civilian scientist working with the US Army. Click here to download an interesting story about Dr. Gibson’s testing from the June 2004 issue of Inside Outdoor magazine.

In the chart posted above as you move to the right on the horizontal axis, you can see that Polartec Power Shield Pro (the blue line) breathes more and more as you increase the pressure – this is roughly equivalent to increasing air speed or wind – like going from standing still to walking to a light jog. The harder you work, the harder the fabric works (both convection and diffusion are at work when air is moving). Meanwhile, the orange line represents a full-film softshell fabric – the line is flat meaning breathability does not change. This translates to a damp sweaty user experience as exertion levels increase.

Polartec has always emphasized air permeability. Even tiny, tiny amounts of air flowing through the fabric massively increases a fabric’s ability to move moisture vapor away from your body. Fabrics without airflow require a significant amount of heat and moisture vapor to build up inside the jacket before they start to work. We have all experienced the sweat-box feeling of a fabric that relies only on diffusion to “breathe.”

Fall 2010 a range of jackets will be available in the new ultimate soft shell – Polartec Power Shield Pro. For more on Polartec Power Shield Pro, scroll down to see previous posts on the fabric launch and on Polartec’s partnership with Finetex.

Every season we get a handful of early sample garments from our customers so we can seed them to the media for testing and reviews. Right now we’ve got a bunch of the coolest new Fall ‘10 layers from Patagonia, The North Face, Mountain Hardwear, Arc’teryx, Marmot, Canada Goose, Isis and more. As a reward to our loyal JustaZipper readers, we’re going to try doing an occasional product giveaway with some of these garments. To kick it off, we’re going to do a drawing for the new R3 Hi-Loft Jacket from Patagonia.

The R3 Hi-Loft features new Polartec® Thermal Pro® fabric that’s 30% warmer than the previous R3. The open-mesh stitch of the fabric promotes compressibility, increases airflow and minimizes weight, while the new addition of Polartec® Power Stretch® on the side panels allows the jacket to move any way you do. MSRP is $179.

For a chance to win this R3 Hi-Loft, all you have to do is leave a relevant comment on this post (like, “The R3 is awesome and I wanna win it”). On Tuesday, we’ll pick a random winner from all the comments.

We think this is a pretty cool opportunity to get a free R3, a full six months before it’s available to buy.

Big disclaimer: The sample size is men’s medium and that’s all we’ve got. Same thing for the color. There are no exchanges or returns! Did we mention it’s mango!

Good luck.

We also just finished this video about Power Shield Pro, which features our Athlete Advisory Board Members Sari Anderson, Kelly Cordes and Nick DeVore. It provides a great description of how the fabric was developed and how it performs.

Ever wonder what goes into developing the high-performance fabric in your technical clothing? I talked with Karen Beattie, Product Marketing Manager at Polartec, to find out. Polartec (formerly Malden Mills) is a world leader in advanced performance textiles, manufacturing more than 300 different types of fabrics, mostly for the outdoor industry (though they also develop fabrics for military and industrial use). They design fabrics for conditions ranging from extreme heat to severe cold, from dry to stormy, and everything in between. Here’s a glimpse into how it’s done:

The TNF Kishtwar jacket, featuring Polartec's new Power Shield Pro fabric

Spadout: Polartec is credited with helping develop the modern fleece. How did that happen?
Beattie: Polartec, or Malden Mills as it was called then, was a mill that largely made fake animal fur products, with the core competency of surface finishing (raising pile and creating loft). A fledgling outdoor company – Patagonia – came and showed us a problem they had. It was a carpet-like polyester pile, with one side of fuzz and one side of carpet backing – it was a little more pliable than carpet, but the same sort of thing. They were like, “This stuff has some advantages over wool; it’s synthetic, breathable, and it dries quickly, but it’s pilly, it starts looking bad, and it’d be better if it were softer on the inside because it’s like – well, like carpet backing.” So we studied the concept, and had some constructions that lent themselves to double-sided surface finishings. We tried some out, submitted them to Patagonia, and they liked it a lot. That’s how fleece was born.

Spadout: What goes into developing a new product?
Beattie: We start with a defined problem, a customer need, and we have a body of knowledge on fiber choice and polymer chemistry – what’s great about polyester, what’s great about nylon, what’s great about polypropylene. Also, we have knowledge about yarn choice, yarn size, knitting experience, what kinds of constructions to use with these yarns to maximize their potential; and surface finishing, which is our core competency – how to create loft, minimize weight, and make something that performs and is durable for the long run.

For example, if the problem is defined as internal moisture management – keeping sweat away from your body and needing quick drying – there’s the thinking that went into Polartec Power Dry with polypropylene, where we’ve got bi-component construction with the polypropylene next to the skin and the polyester on the outside. So, a fiber choice was made (two different fibers actually); a construction choice (how to knit it, where to put the polypropylene and where to put the polyester); and then some finishing ideas (brushing the inside of the polypropylene to give a couple of little touch-points next-to-skin for active moisture transport).

You take all those little variables and you consider them like levers, which buttons do I push, which levers do I pull, and you put the package together.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Staying dry is the key to comfort year-round and base layers are the most critical layering choice in the winter. If your current clothing system isn’t keeping you warm enough, upgrading the fabrics next to your skin can be the most cost effective way to be warmer – this is especially true for start and stop activities where you sweat and then chill.