Faves of an Outdoor Girl

Being an outdoor apparel designer sometimes makes things a little tricky when buying performance clothing and gear, each time I venture into "outdoor" stores more often than not I'm a little disappointed in the end.  First of all, if my street wear would perform the way I needed I probably wouldn't even buy outdoor gear, because for the most part I find it terribly conservative, unflattering, and not playful enough.  But alas that whole performance thing is important so..... I go with the goal of getting a bunch of gear all at once, but there is never enough stuff that looks good, functions, and fits good too.  If all of those things are in magically in alignment I try not to worry about the price because I know I'll wear it to death.  Here are just a few of my fave's that have been living in my closet and getting tons of use.

Lululemon may not be an outdoor brand by design, but these Wunder Under Crop pants rock, I wear them to the gym, for yoga, hiking because I love how smoothly they rest under my hip belt, for short bike commutes, camping, and under my fishing waders too.  They are hard enough wearing to hold up well to outdoor living, and it doesn't hurt that they fit amazing too.  The $68 spent on these is worth every penny.

  

                          

I'm a huge fan of merino wool because it's natural and it's the only base layer that I can wear and sweat in heavily for multiple days without it stinking.  I recently started wearing the Women's Balance Bralette from Ibex and....I LOVE it.  In fact I have it on right now.  This piece fits great, is super comfy with straps that aren't binding or painful, and they adjust (very important).  Looking forward to wearing this on my long backpacking trip in August and seeing how it holds up.  At $42.00 it's not cheap, but it's merino and will last forever.

                                         

Keeping with the wool theme, my Tech Top from Icebreaker is one of the best fitting and most comfortable cool weather layering pieces that I have ever owned.  I find myself wearing it for shoulder season hiking and biking, underneath my shells on the mountain in the winter and everything in between.  I picked it up in NYC at Paragon Sports at just over $100, but I've had it for I think 4 winters now and it's still going strong in the love line of my outdoor gear, though I'm craving a new color.  I love that they are one of the few outdoor brands who has the whole length thing right on tops.  (We like them long now, hint hint to all the other brands.)  I have a lonely hearts club in my closet of tops that are too short, I often wonder how they got there, and because the collection has grown it's something that I really pay attention to now.  I have tops from Mountain Hardwear, Columbia, Patagonia, Arcteryx, Ibex, Carve, Cloudveil all too short and never get worn, and there are countless ones that I put back on the rack instantly because they look short and boxy.

                                        

In the category of non traditional, during one of my many visits to Target I happened on their Women's Seamless Fashion Cami by Champion, the rule for me when buying something besides the household items from Target is that it has to work without trying it on.  For $12.00 it was a pretty low risk to pick up a size small and take it for a test drive.  I was surprised at how well they fit, and how comfy they were, I have about 6 of them now.  I even wore one of them when I climbed Mt. Shasta last summer as my underlayer that I wore for 3 days straight while climbing.  They come in loads of colors and a couple of other styles as well.  They don't offer heavy support but good for lighter active tasks that aren't high impact.

                        

I'm also doing some wear testing for Cocona's Xcelerator technology, this spring they shipped out a new 2.5 layer lightweight shell for me to test.  I loved the design of the jacket, simple, nice fit, and details that worked without being too tricky.  Since we had the longest ever winter+spring that never ended in the northwest I was able to test this jacket much more than usual.  I wore it mountain biking, trail running, and trekking in the snow at 8,000 ft. on Mt. Shasta.  In one of my notes to them I wrote, "Thought I would test this piece aerobically in a different way than my prior test, weather is very damp and cool, underneath the jacket I wore a mid-weight merino base layer and hiked vigorously for about 1 hour 15 minutes with a 20 pound pack, and....never had to take off my Xcelerator layer.  My wool layer was pretty damp underneath, but it would have been even without the jacket on, I was working pretty hard aerobically.  I was impressed with the comfort level and my lack of feeling clammy too." This piece has been my go to outerlayer all spring.

I crave more risk taking from outdoor brands, better fit, and more current looks that could be worn as both street wear and for outdoor use without looking instantly like "I'm from Oregon" or hearing the words, "you look so granola today."  Because in the end, "girls just want to have fun."