I wrote a series of posts a while ago about my quest for finding better clothing for travel. That morphed into finding better clothing for everyday and all of that morphed into my launching a new site with my pal Steve, called Everyday Wear.
Since I started writing about all this clothing, I’ve managed to replace almost all of my clothing with this type of clothing. I don’t own any standard jeans, I only wear cotton t-shirts to sleep in at night, and at that I only have five. I don’t even wear cotton socks. There’s a lot of reasons why I have been so all in on moving my wardrobe, here are a few:
- Comfort: these clothes are far more comfortable than what most people buy and wear. Almost all of them stretch in some way, or have cuts like gussets to allow for better movement. They also dry faster, which helps when you get warm or wet. In other words they work with my body, not against it.
- Laundering: most of the clothing I wear now can get several wears before they need to be laundered at the minimum. What that means in a practical, non-travel, setting is best shown by what happened to me last week. I noticed I was running low on shirts, and saw that my laundry pile was actually all of my clothes minus what I was wearing. I washed it all in one load, and hung it to dry. It dried overnight and all was good. It had been two and a half weeks since I did laundry. That’s good for the environment, but also a reprieve as a parent.
- Cost: most of these items cost only slightly more than a nice variant in a traditional wardrobe, but they last substantially longer. I have yet to have any of these items wear out, except for one single Wool and Prince button down. This is actually a cheaper way to outfit yourself, especially if you typically buy clothing from somewhere like Nordstrom. You’ll likely pay the same price for the shirts as you would there.
It’s been close to three years of me dressing like this and there’s no way in hell I am turning back. Performance clothing like this is so much better I don’t understand why everyone isn’t wearing it.
To that end, here’s some of the more popular posts Steve and I have written over at Everyday Wear, all of which should help you get started with wearing better clothing.
- Outlier Pants Overview
- Starting from Scratch Wardrobe Steve’s, Mine.
- Allbirds Runners
- Overview of GORUCK Clothing
- Bluffworks Meridian Dress Shirt
- Wool & Prince Button Downs
We also try and post most of the packing lists from our travels so you can see what we pack on a regular basis. Again, most people who buy designer clothing are paying the same or more for their clothing than what we are for clothing that feels better and lasts longer. And, no, the stuff we wear doesn’t look like weird hiking clothes we bought at REI.