Billabong Underwear

Billabong Underwear

BILLABONG LONG SLEEVE LONG UNDERWEAR T SHIRT
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US $15.00

Fifty years ago it would have been hard to find a mountaineer not wearing clothes and underwear made from wool. This was not particularly due to choice but because of necessity. There was nothing else that had the required characteristics of providing warmth with reasonable weight that was still good when wet. Other natural fabrics such as cotton were no good because they soak up water whereas materials such as silk, although fantastically light and warm, were just too expensive. The downside of wool, however, was that it was darn itchy and relatively bulky.

All that changed over the past few decades with the development of synthetic fibres and the widespread adoption of synthetic fleece which revolutionised outdoor sports and apparel. Here was a material that shrugged off water because it was non-absorbent, was light, soft and warm. Soon it found its way into everything from warm and toasty underwear (known as base-layers, by outdoor sports enthusiasts) to light insulating layers. In various forms it has even been incorporated into gloves and boots.

But over the past few years the pendulum has begun to swing the other way back in favour of more natural materials such as wool. There are two main reasons. The first is that outdoor enthusiasts discovered the synthetics can get quite stinky quite quickly. This is because bacteria just love the fibres and happily proliferate on them, soaking up perspiration and turning it into unpleasant smells. The second is that wool manufacturers in New Zealand revolutionised merino wool, breeding sheep specially and the shearing them carefully to get very fine, soft wool. This is softer than the old merino of yore yet still retains the advantages of natural fibres in that it is naturally antibacterial so that it does not provide a breeding place for the sorts of bugs that produce stinky smells. Moreover, natural products such as wool are less flammable than synthetic fleeces, which are largely produced from petroleum-derived chemicals. Best of all, they do not itch, which will make a new generation of mountaineers a lot happier than their grandparents were.

Jon Rose is the pen name of a journalist who has spent many years climbing mountains and enjoying the outdoors. You can read other articles he has written about merino wool and polartec or other subjects about mountaineering clothing at http://mountaineering-gear.blogspot.com/2005/10/smartwool-or-icebreaker-merino.html