A few inquiries lately so figured it was time for a check in / update. As I’ve noted in pervious years – where I am, specifically the weather where I am, has a shaping influence on the basic set up. I’ve been living in Vancouver now for going on 4 years which is much cooler climate wise than Tokyo and that’s reflected in the modifications I’ve made since then – though if you read my last update this one is probably predictable.
Socks – I’m about 50/50 between Stance cotton socks and Darn Tough wool socks. You’ll recall that one of the things I loved about Darn Tough was their 100% guaranteed no questions asked replacement policy which essentially means you buy them once and then for the rest of your life if your socks wear out you can replace them for free. One of the things I’ve learned about Canada since living here is that there’s a bunch of exceptions for everything. I’ve been told a lot of this is due to panic that foreign companies were going to come in and take over the market, so there’s a bunch of laws and policies requiring business goes through Canadian companies which has led to some obnoxious monopolies and a bunch of “exceptions” to policies that apply globally, but not in Canada. Darn Toughs policy is one of those. So rather than just sending them in and them sending you new ones, you have to send them to their Canadian distributor with a note explaining what went wrong and why and they will then decide if they replace them or not. In the last 4 years I’ve sent in 4 pairs of socks, one was rejected because I didn’t buy the socks in Canada, one was approved but it took 3 months to get the replacements, and two other pairs just disappeared, and Darn Tough hasn’t responded to any of my inquiries about them. So if the goal was to make the policy too painful for anyone to take advantage of, consider that a success. As a result I’ve been getting Stance socks instead, which are very comfortable but not really as durable so I just know I’ll have to buy replacements next year.
Underwear – David Archy Bamboo Boxer Briefs. Bamboo is such a great fabric for underwear, so comfortable and more sustainable than whatever synthetic blends most “tech fabrics” are made of.
T-shirts – Reigning Champ mid weight standard. These are great and I prefer them over everything right now. One of the selling points of wool shirts was “wear them for several days without worrying about washing them” and while cotton isn’t as forgiving, these are solid enough that they can easily be worn 2 days in a row without any concern at all. I really like this cloth weight and build quality. If I could get this exact same thing in Bamboo rather than cotton it would be my dream come true, but so far Bamboo seems to always be much thinner and not as structurally rigid. I hate thin t-shirts and that ended up being part of the deal killer with the Outlier wool shirts, they were either so super thin that I felt like my nipples were going to rip through them or so thick that they couldn’t be worn anytime outside of the dead of winter and took days to hang dry after washing. Also the ethical trade off was no bueno.
Pants – Still on my Iron Heart Japan jeans kick. I’ve got 4 pair of various weights, 14oz, 18oz and 24oz. Iron Heart repairs these for free in Japan too, so as they’ve worn over the years I coordinate dropping them off when I’m in Tokyo and they mend them in a way that seems unheard of outside of Japan. They don’t just slap on a patch, they re-thread seams and darn the denim so when I get them back it’s like thy never had a hole or rip. It’s incredible. I hunted all over Canada to find anyone doing repairs like this, and no one even comes close. The Russian seamstress at the tailor down the street from me almost ripped my head off for asking if they could repair without a patch. I prefer black pants, the 24oz ones only come in blue. So I attempted to dye them at home with some RIT dye which was kind of successful? For a few months anyway, then it kind of washed out and was a bit messy in the process. That said, I do like the black so I’ll probably dye them again.
Most of the time I’ll add a crew neck sweatshirt or sweater because I’m running a bit cold these days and prefer long sleeves. If it’s hotter I’ll swap to light hoodie or track jacket zip up thing.
Shoes – I realized the toe box on some of my smaller profile “skate” shoes were cramping my toes and starting to hurt, so I’ve switched back to Adidas shell toes almost entirely and with their new official vegan versions I don’t have to hunt for all synthetic models as hard as I used to. The big toe area is much more comfortable and they are fairly water resistant too which is good here where it rains so much. I have some Gore-Tex Adidas cross/hike shoes that I’ll use if we’re going out into the woods, but I don’t love them so not going to specifically recommend.
