Awesome Stuff: Updating Classic Clothing

Culture

from the got-something-to-wear? dept

For this week’s awesome stuff post of interesting crowdfunding projects, we’re going to take a look at some clothing projects.

• First up, is Sweat Tailor, an attempt to make sweat pants… that are actually decent pants you can wear out and about. Generally speaking, sweat pants tend to be crappy quality stuff that doesn’t really fit, that you wear around at home. However, these guys are trying to make sweat pants that are made more like regular pants (including sizing), so that people can have the comfort of sweat pants, but still be more comfortable wearing them when they go out. Just from the description, these sound like the kind of things hipsters would flip out over, and hipsters often seem to flock to Kickstarter, so no surprise that it’s already passed its $35,000 goal. A pair of these will set you back $79, though, which probably makes them the most expensive sweat pants you’ll ever buy.
• Okay, how about some swim shorts that don’t get wet. Fabrics that don’t get wet have been around for quite some time (in fact, our head of research, Michael Ho, worked at a company making such fabrics many years ago). They’re frequently referred to (somewhat inaccurately) as naontech fabrics and clothing, and that description has stuck. In this case, they’ve applied it to swim shorts (again, not a totally new concept), but it still gets some attention. The video for this project cheats a bit, because they just squirt a little bit of water on the shorts, rather than show what happens when someone actually wears them in a pool or ocean. In fact, they never even show anyone wearing them which seems a little sketchy. Also, they never really specific what technology is really in the fabric, but most of the options out there to date aren’t really all that comfortable, and don’t really breath that well. That might not be too pleasant for swim trunks. The project only kicked off a few days ago and is already about a third of a way to being funded, meaning it’s likely to hit its goal of $10,000. Each pair will run you $47 (Canadian). So, if you buy swim trunks not to get them wet (wait, who does that?), you can jump in — but seems like the kind of thing that you might want to wait for actual reviews on before plunging in.
• And, finally, we’ve got the Quarter Century Belt. While the first two projects were about trying to update some classic forms of clothing, this one is more about looking back. Recognizing that we rarely build wardrobe pieces that last any more, these guys are building a belt that comes with a 25 year guarantee. There’s not much more to it than that, other than that they’re insisting that it’s high quality, but not for designer belt prices. This one is already well past its $10,000 target with more than a month and a half to go. If you can sneak in under the early bird pricing, you can get it for $37, or else the price goes up to $45. You can find cheaper belts out there on the market today, but they’re generally not great quality ones.

That’s it for this week — go enjoy the holiday weekend.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, belts, clothing, nanotechnology, sweatpants, water proof