Clothes made for movement

Whether you live, work or play in the outdoors our clothing is designed to make your time in it more comfortable. This is where we can help you.

Alpkit outdoor clothing is designed to perform optimally in the variable British climate, it is the perfect testing ground for adventures further afield; from the Alps and beyond.

We think we have the best job in the world; designing clothes to be worn from the valley floor to the summit.

Winter gets all the limelight for being the tough season but Summer isn't exactly easy on clothing either. Its job in maintaining your personal comfort is the same, the feature list curiously similar to the feature set you would expect during the colder months!

It needs to keep you cool, warm (there you go right there), dry and offer protection from UV. It needs to be washable, quick drying, durable, flexible and stashable. It needs to have built in utility, be repairable, recyclable... and of course - look good.

Each of those factors is worthy of a post in itself, but the good news is that if you are already layering.. more on that soon, most technical outdoor clothing can be worn all-year-round.

What is technical outdoor clothing?

What separates a technical piece of clothing from a basic wardrobe staple is its functional design and choice of fabric. Outdoor adventures put more demands on our body and our clothing: we need things to wick moisture, dry quickly, move with us and put up with the rough and tumble of outdoor activities.

While each piece of clothing works fine on its own, its power is unleashed when combined with other garments. Without wanting to get too jargony, our clothing works as a layering system. Clothing intended to work interdependently.

Each piece of clothing we design is made in the best factories in the world and goes through the same rigorous design process as the rest of our products. Most importantly we put you at the centre of it. So whether you are completing the Fellsman or just tucking your sunglasses into your breast pocket you can be assured we have thought it through.

To make really, really great technical, functional clothing we spend a lot of time thinking about how it behaves when you are wearing it and when you are carrying it.

Clothing that moves with you, not against you

Outdoor clothing may have its roots in hillwalking but its application has extended into other areas such as cycling, running, travel, swimming and paddling.

This makes sense as they all involve time and movement in dynamic environments. Mostly changeable and out of your control.

All of those thoughtful, functional little features that have been worked out on the hill like accessible pockets, anatomical cuts and technical fabrics trickle through in to all of our clothing to make your time moving outdoors more comfortable.

Clothing that packs away into tiny packing cubes

Anyone who has packed for a cycle tour will have experienced the feeling that there’s no room left for clothing once all the ‘essentials’ have been accounted for! The answer is to take clothing that you can do as much as possible in -everything has to earn its place. No need to take a spare t-shirt if your technical tee can do it all.

That leads us nicely into the headspace for designing functional clothing that we want to wear no matter what we’re doing. Once you have made this step you will be applying this thinking to even weekend breaks, packing faster, travelling lighter.

Choosing the right fabrics for outdoor clothing

The design process begins with the hunt for the right fabrics to create the products you will love longer. Where possible we chose fabrics that lighten our load on the planet, by using environmentally responsible materials and removing harmful PFCs.

A single post cannot do justice to a range that extends across the disciplines of hiking, running, biking, climbing, swimming and now paddlesports, so let's throw the focus on a few items and see how some of our design choices result in better products for you.

When it came to the Farne Tee, we knew we wanted to make a shirt that felt like our old favourite cotton tee. It’s amazing how a blend of rayon (a regenerated cellulosic fibre) with polyester can mimic the natural feel of cotton, whilst vastly improving on the shirt’s ability to move moisture away from your skin.

For our womens Mello Tech Tights we needed a fabric that had fantastic stretch properties with a denser knit that would offer greater durability for climbing in, whilst also preventing the dreaded show-through. We rejected several options that were too shiny, or too thin, or didn’t have enough spandex in them to keep the tights in place.

Our Mira shirt features tailored shoulders to maintain freedom of movement while wearing a rucksack or reaching forward when on a bike. We chose a wicking and fast-drying fabric that has a cotton-like feel for next to skin comfort, which has also been treated with a Polygiene® odour control to stay fresh for multi-day use.

Wow, there’s loads to say about this shirt, so so comfortable, the colours are amazing and the fit is very flattering, more colours please. This is so packable and no creases, definite thumbs up for those camping trips, I bought a size 6 and usually wear a size 6. - Janet

Attention to detail with UPF 50+ sun protection, two-position adjustable cuffs, chest pockets with velcro closure and a button hole to store sunglasses help you keep moving longer.

We use Polygiene anti-odour technology extensively across our clothing range, reducing the need to wash so often and improve your comfort in hot climates. By inhibiting the growth of bacteria, it extends your shirt's lifespan so you can wear it more and wash it less. Wearing your shirt just one more time before washing can save huge amounts of CO₂ and water over its lifespan.

The Picu organic cotton Tees and Korri Camisole use a DriRelease Eco fabric, which blends recycled polyester with a little bit of organic cotton to create a fabric that is super soft and comfortable (like your favourite cotton tee) but wicks better and dries four times faster.

Designing outdoor clothing

Once we have settled on the best fabric for each product, the detailed design work starts. We focus on the elements that make a piece of clothing better for active use in the warmer months, such as freedom of movement. Every piece of clothing goes through several rigorous fit tests on real life bodies (no mannequin can throw shapes like a climber can!) to ensure they are made for movement. Other practical details like ventilation and sun protection are built into the designs. For example the Rivo Henley styles have a button opening to allow you to increase air flow when the going gets warm, and the Cabrera polo collar is stiffened so it can be turned up to protect the back of your neck from the sun.

Both our women's and men's clothing ranges meet the needs of active outdoor people. Whether synthetic or natural fibres, they are technical fabrics designed with functionality in mind, the kind of clothing you will want to wear at the wall, on the hill or surviving an intercontinental train journey without AC. We spend a lot of time working on fit on a range of different body shapes and sizes to develop clothing that moves with you.

So there you have it, a sneak peak into the process behind our summer clothing, designed to make deciding what to wear that little bit easier. We hope the result of all this hard work is the kind of clothing you’ll want to wear day in, day out.

Continue your journey with more layering advice:

• What to wear for trail running
• What to wear for hillwalking
• What to wear for camping
• What to wear for outdoor swimming
• What to wear for cycling
• What to wear for canoeing and paddleboarding