I r-r-r-really don’t trust the quality of that shit.
you are not a cyberpunk you life in hastings nebraska
Do you want to look like a cyborg ninja or do you just want high performance forward thinking clothes? The hype beast street ninjas aren't usually doing real techware, the cheap fast fashion cyberninja stuff isn't well made. To be "real" techwear you've got to go beyond just looking like a ninja and actually have well made clothes using advanced technical fabrics and construction techniques. The good ninja stuff comes from Stone Island or ACRNYM or weird little indy fashionhouses.
If your goal is to be cool when people are hot, dry when people are wet, and comfortable when everyone is miserable, the practical side of things, you can look at most fancy outdoor companies, but also less pricey places. Uniqlo is always recommended as a place to look for basics. If you're in the us you can find good quality and relatively affordable stuff at REI. There are also online retailers like Steep and Cheap that sell last years stuff.
I get much of my "techwear" from Duluth Trading. They're not the usual techwear aesthetic, but they've got cool stuff going with their workwear - dwr treatments, four way stretch highly abrasion resistant fabrics, the famous crouch gusset, and pants laid out to actually be used as workwear.
Regardless, from what I understand many people will save up to get one really cool Stone Island or other fancy piece and use that to anchor their look, while using less expensive and prestigious basics to fill in. Get an iconic jacket or pants, then finish out with basics from uniqlo or whatever.
Make sure to haunt trade, exchange, and re-sell websites. Sometimes people will have cool stuff at good prices. It's not like tech clothes every wear out when most techwear people are office workers equipped with pants that can function as a space suit in a pinch.
Fun side story, cw animal products
I was thinking about how techwear is an aesthetic, but to be techwear the clothes actually have to be technical. Technical fabrics, inventive high utility designs and mods. But that doesn't necessarily mean new. I've heard stories that a couple of modern high performance wicking fabrics were only possible because material science guys went up to Alaska to talk to Alaska Natives about how their cold weather kit actually works. That's part of where the idea for wicking materials that pull water away from the body while maintaining an insulating air layer even when the material is wet came from; the designers were mimicking the properties of marine mammal fur to get the same effects Alaska Natives had (and are) been making use of. Reminds me that Europeans never really figured out how to make reliably waterproof kit until they started working with quantities of rubber, while Alaska Natives had very light weight waterproof kit made from marine mammal gut the whole time. Technology is about making efficient use of what you have access to, and expanding on those capabilities, rather than a map game tech tree.
Technical fabrics, inventive high utility designs and mods. But that doesn't necessarily mean new.
Basic wool socks will probably the best upgrade you can make. It’ll eliminate stinky feet, stinky socks, and stinky shoes, and the sweat is absorbed. Very technical for the price. I got mine from some Vermont company called Darn Tough and they’ll replace your socks for free if they ever get damaged. They also have them at Costco in larger packs.
Hard agree on wool. Nothing has ever really beaten in. Most of my socks are Kirkland brand fron Costco.
just want high performance forward thinking clothes
I think the trendy fashion term for this is gorpcore, but you and others in this thread have the right idea. Kitting yourself up to look like a Metal Gear Solid villain can be weird, impractical, and expensive (but don't let me stop you if that's what you want). Incorporating a cool cyber ninja piece into a wardrobe with other hiking gear, work wear, and whatever stuff you like into a cohesive wardrobe is part of the fun of fashion.
gorpcore
Not familiar with Gorpcore but it looks like that's more wearing ski clothes when you're not skiing. The subdued, not flashy techwear style is sometime's called "greyman" after the security culture idea that the ideal infiltrator is the most boring, ho-hum, unremarkable guy you can find. The "greyman" look is about extremely high-tech clothing that can pass as normal commuter dweeb clothes to those not clued in.
I may just be old and out of date, but I consider greyman to be more "authentic" techwear as it's more of, idk, actual ninjas vs anime ninjas. Greyman kit will hold up to doing actual ninja shit whereas a cyberninja will end up stuck to a fence by their pants straps. Greyman is, weirdly, an aesthetic of concealment where substance is as important as style; You need to have the high quality fabrics and good construction, you want to look sharp, but you want to look sharp only to people who know what they're looking at. The coppertops on the street shouldn't be able to tell.
I like the greyman ideal bc, well, a cyberninja looks like a cyberninja on their way to an anime con. A greyman look lets you do actual spy stuff. I really enjoy the contradiction of an aesthetic that's based on the substantial properties of the clothing - utility, durability, comfort, but visually it's supposed to blend with ho hum tech workers around you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Ow5LM9RInTY
Here's an old style guide laying it out. I'ma go look in to Gorpcore and decide hw I feel about it. Cheers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Ow5LM9RInTY
I think there's certainly an overlap, but yeah, bright color blocking and flashy pieces wouldn't fit in with the greyman look. Dressing like a Tom Clancy villain is definitely more practical than dressing like a Metal Gear villain lol
Lol Arc'Teryx just locked down the website because my no-script, cookie blocking, and adblocking apps made it upset. Not very cyberninja of you Arc'Teryx. But then they're cops so shrug
Look up functional clothing brands first. They don’t call themselves “techwear” nor are they traditional techwear brands. Keywords like “threeway stretch pants” will yield results from companies that make pants for military, outdoors activities, construction, etc. The aesthetics will vary but will often be the same as ‘techwear’, but IMO usually the pants are more aesthetically pleasing whereas tops tend to vary and stray from techwear.
- Truwerk
- 511
- Didriksons
- POC Sports
- G-STAR RAW (high quality and matches the aesthetics, but IME the materials aren’t “technical”/functional)
If you want to mix aesthetics while retaining functionality, look up Japanese construction clothes or fashion brands that make clothes in similar styles. These will be more baggy than the western techwear.
But more “techwear” specific brands will be expensive usually. Here are the commonly suggested brands
- Acronym - https://acrnm.com/
- Enfin Levé - https://enfinleve.com/
- Nemen - https://www.nemen.it/
- Arc’Teryx - https://arcteryx.com/
- Veilance - https://arcteryx.com/us/en/veilance
- Orbit Gear - https://www.orbitgear.net/
- Nike ACG - https://www.nike.com/acg
- Riot Division - https://riotdivision.tech/
- Guerrilla Group - https://www.guerrilla-group.co/
- ROSEN X - https://rosen-store.com/collections/rosen-x
I also like ACW/A Cold Wall clothes.
I’ve had my 5.11 Tactical boots for about a year and the soles are already fucked off and they’re generally in poor shape lol, though I live a very rugged lifestyle so idk.
Yeah 511 is a military/police contractor, so expect American contractor quality lol. I would look for outdoors companies if you want durability, perhaps with origins in areas where people actually do heavy outdoor activities (Didriksons is Swedish for example). A lot of military equipment take inspiration from extreme sports gear since those people are likely using the gear more than soldiers, and in the past few years sports gear and techwear have been taking inspiration from each other.
So many companies have been bought out and switched to lower quality materials over the last few decades. : p it's hard to even tell who still makes good boots these days.
there are some indie studios that make some decent stuff, but they tend to be very expensive and have nonexistent customer service lol
Yeah, i was gonna say i'm not a fan of 5.11. Do they have goodyear welts on the soles? You might be able to get them re-soled with vibram outsoles. Idk how much it cost me last time but i want to say likw ~70$ at a shoe repair shop.
Do they even make goodyear military boots? From google search it looks like there are fashion oriented boots in the style of combat boots, but not actual combat/law enforcement shoes with goodyear welts.
Dunno, i haven't worn 5.11 in years. My last pair of combat boots were some corcorans i picked up ~10 years and 2-3 sets of soles ago. And then ~5 years ago i finally let myself be convinced that "ankle support" isn't real and got some light weight hybrid trail running shoes and never looked back.
Eh I have a pair of used Doc Martens I’m attempting to break in. I’ll miss the side zipper though.
I always bought chinese fakes of these. Shipping was quite expensive, but I found that the quality was identical to the legitimate pieces. I really liked the Nike and Acronym stuff. I bought 2 fake pairs of these for $20 and they're easily the most comfortable and durable pieces of clothing I wear. The grey ones also double as lingerie, so that's cool. I also used to have a pair of Nike x Acronym
Yeah, look for materials. That's all it's about, you can fix everything else if it pops up but having a shitty fabric isn't something you can fix. Strongly suggest getting familiar with Superbuy and other such services, makes high fashion much cheaper.
