Posts Tagged Columbia
Columbia Silver Ridge Stretch Travel Shirt
Want a quick-dry, lightweight, multi-functional shirt that moves with you when you’re on the move? This long-sleeve stretch version of the popular Silver Ridge shirt from Columbia works a lot of features into its $55 list price.
It’s got tabs with buttons so you can roll up the sleeves as you get hotter and keep them there. There’s a fabric hook on both the inside and outside to hang it up. Each pocket has a zipper and there’s also a pocket where you can stick in a pen or small knife, with a buttonhole to allow it to poke up through the pocket flap if the object is too long. It’s made of wicking, quick-dry nylon, but the additional 4% elastane fabric provides more give than similar shirts so you have a wider range of motion.
Naturally it dries quickly when you sink wash it and in my experience it only took five minutes for sweat to dry if I moved from a hot place to a cooler one. There are vents to let out some of that body heat too, which helps a lot, and a mesh liner along the top third of the shirt.
The fabric is wispy-light, a good thing unless you routinely rely on your shirt for sun protection—the SPF rating is only 15. Not for the Danes perhaps.
The Silver Ridge Stretch long-sleeve shirt from Columbia Sportswear comes in five sizes and four colors. There’s a women’s version too, with significantly trimmer styling and no pockets on the front. It has a list price that’s $5 less, has an SPF rating of 30, and comes in six colors.
The links above go to the specific shirt pages on Columbia.com. It’s also available at these retailers:
Columbia Silver Ridge Stretch Shirt – Men’s at Backcountry.com
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, Travel Light on July 22nd, 2010
Tangier Quick-dry, Sunblock Top from Columbia
I’ll be the first to admit that us guys are not all too picky about what our travel clothing looks like when we go on vacation or are backpacking around the world. The women in our lives don’t always agree though. So they’re less enthusiastic about rugged clothes meant for travel and often want to pack 20 pretty blouses for 10 days of travel.
This Tangier Travel Top from Columbia Sportswear got a major thumbs-up from my significant other though, thanks to its ability to effectively combine form with function. Think of it as a Lulu Lemon top at half the price: a list price of $45 and even less for close-out colors at Amazon. (Follow that link.)
What sold my personal trainer wife on this top was that it made her look great. The usual complaint about travel clothing is that it’s too baggy and is not flattering to a figure that stays in shape. This Tangier Travel Top is a different story, fitting snugly but with plenty of stretchy movement built in. It is drawn in at the waist and goes partway down the hips, accentuating the body shape.
It looks like something a trainer could be wearing to a gym, but is made to wear well on the road. It dries fast after a sink washing or a strenuous climb. It is made with Columbia’s Omni-shade technology, giving you an SPF factor of 50. (So you can ride a camel through the desert, but be more sensibly dressed than the Sex & the City bimbos.)
It’s all synthetic of course, but this travel top is soft, comfortable, and feels nice to the touch. No swishy-swishy as you sashay.
For some reason only the black color is available at the Columbia Sportswear site, but I’ve seen others at retail and you can find the whole spectrum at Amazon and at Backcountry.com
Related post: Fashion and Function for the “It Girl”
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, Travel Light on July 7th, 2010
Columbia Cliff Dwell Shirt for Cliff Climbing or Coffee
The Cliff Dwell shirt from Columbia Sportswear belongs to the class of shirts I keep throwing into my travel bag by instinct these days: lightweight, functional, and durable, but not too far off from what I would wear if I weren’t traveling. I can pack smart and look smart in multiple situations.
In the photo this looks like a typical plaid short-sleeve shirt, something you would throw on before traipsing out to the local coffee shop. But up close it’s more. There’s Columbia’s Omni-Shield treatment, first of all, which makes the shirt water-resistant and breathable. So you stay relatively dry when you’ve spilled a drink on your shirt or you start sweating from embarrassment afterwards. I poured a whole glass of water on my shoulder while wearing this and it flowed right off the side. In a misty drizzle the precipitation just beaded up on the surface.
There’s 30 SPF sun protection and this shirt is from the “Titanium” line, meant to be extra-tough for travelers or adventurers. Still, the fabric is soft to the touch and feels good on the skin.
There are a few other subtle touches putting this on a level above the sea of similar shirts in most any store for men. The left chest pocket is mesh on the inside, zippered on the outside. The arm cuffs are a nice touch and there’s a mesh lining along the shoulder. A fabric loop inside the collar aids hanging on a hook—handy after a sink washing on the road.
Travel shirts like this aren’t flashy or loaded with features, and it’s hard to differentiate a particular one when most are made in Asia from some mix of polyester and nylon. Usually the ones from a dependable brand go a bit beyond the norm though, with a good fit and some extra treatments to the fabric. That’s the case with this Cliff Dwell shirt, which I’ll keep grabbing without thinking about it as I’m picking out clothes for a trip.
The Cliff Dwell shirt lists for $55 at Columbia Sportswear’s site, where you can see more specs and the four available colors.
Or follow these links to get it at REI, or at RockCreek.com.
Browse all travel clothing from Columbia.com
Posted by Tim in General Gear, Travel Light on April 21st, 2010
Columbia Titanium Expedition Travel Pants
What weighs 1/3 the amount of a pair of jeans, is twice as strong, and also repels water? These Titanium Expedition travel pants, that’s what.
It used to be that the only way to reduce the amount of weight you were carrying when you traveled was to pack less, buy smaller sizes of cosmetics, and get a light bag. Now the clothes that you pack can make a huge impact as well. Considering you could pack three pairs of these Columbia Sportswear pants for the same weight as a pair of denim jeans, multiplying decisions like that across your wardrobe can make a huge difference.
You get a whole lot more performance out of these as well. They’re not called Titanium just for marketing spin. In my tests on the road they repelled a spilled glass of wine, beaded up in a drizzle, and also stayed looking good for a week: a damp rag cleaned off a bit of dirt that was showing one day.
They’ve got four pockets—always a good thing—but three are mesh inside to keep things cool while the back one is zippered for security. It’s hard to find pants with any innovative “features,” but these do have something cool I haven’t seen before: the leg pocket has a removable pouch inside with a drawstring. You could use this to fly through security at the airport by putting all the metal inside and then just tossing the pouch in a bin. On the other side, stick it back in with the Velcro. Or you can remove it and toss it on a dresser at your hotel to keep keys and the like in one place.
The pants have 50 SPF sun protection in case you’re so pale you can get burned through your pants and there is a fleece lining around the waistband to keep it comfortable. What I like most about these pants is the double-duty aspect. They look good enough to wear into a “no jeans” restaurant or club but can hold up to what you throw at them in the outdoors. You can put these Columbia Titanium Expedition travel pants on in the morning and know they’ll work for whatever you’re doing until bedtime. They come in colors meant for matching: khaki and gray. OK, so they don’t convert to shorts when it gets hot on the trail like some travel pants, but they don’t say, “I’m a tourist” either when you walk into a bar.
They’ll run you 70 bucks if not on sale, which puts them in designer jeans territory, but you’ll probably still be using these in five years, no matter what is happening in the fashion world. I would take these on a year-long round-the-world journey knowing they’d still be in great shape when I returned—even if I wore them every day or two.
Get more details at the Columbia Sportswear page for these travel pants. This particular model is for men, but Columbia makes plenty of great pants for women.
Columbia Titanium Expedition Pant – Men’s at Backcountry.com
Related post: Columbia’s Fashion and Function for the “It Girl”
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, Travel Light on March 24th, 2010
Columbia Sportswear’s Fashion and Function for the “It Girl”
Columbia Sportswear didn’t get so popular without some clever marketing and equally clever design to back it up. After spending 16 hours surfing the manufacturer’s booths at the winter Outdoor Retailers show, it was easy for me to get a little cynical. Are there really major noticeable differences between 500 fleece jackets or 200 different pairs of hiking socks?
I capped the show off though with something that reminded me why there’s a lot to celebrate about the current crop of wonder apparel: a fashion show from Columbia. The company slid me into a VIP seat next to the runway where I could be dazzled by their form-meets-function collection for women that will be hitting the stores this coming fall.
I gotta say I like their attitude. They say this collection is for the “it girl” out there, who may be in her 20s but may be a 40-something mother. She bikes, she snowboards, she hikes, but she works, she pounds the city pavement, and she runs errands. What she wears needs to be comfortable and warm but look good. Her clothes need to do more than one thing. They need to do what they promise without a lot of fuss.
That’s my paraphrasing of a more finely-tuned marketing message, one you’ll surely have seen a lot of by this time next year. Based on what I saw, touched, and tried on, however, they back up the hype with great technology and design.
Enjoy the fashion show video above, especially if you thought that being warm in the outdoors and looking great had to be mutually exclusive.
For more on what’s out there now, visit Columbia.com or search for Columbia at your local retailer, REI.com or Backcountry.com.
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear, Travel Light on January 24th, 2010
