Fleece听is a staple of any outdoors kit. Whether you like yours gridded or shaggy, zippered or pulled over, chances are you have some sort of lofted synthetic midlayer in your pack whenever you head out for a day of hiking, climbing, or skiing. And for good reason: it鈥檚听warm and wicking during high-output activities and damn cozy to snuggle into back at camp. But fleece鈥檚听fuzzy synthetic fibers shed in the wash, polluting waterways.
Polartec is hoping to change that. Last month听the textile manufacturer debuted , a single continuous fabric knit into a grid of air pockets, like wearable bubble wrap.听Fibers听inside the 鈥渂ubbles鈥 make space to trap air, creating听an insulating effect. That space holds body heat, just like the space between down feathers in a puffy coat. Without the exposed pile of a traditional fleece, Power Air is more durable and less prone to pilling听and shedding during a spin cycle.听鈥淏y using the efficiency of encapsulated air to shelter lofted fibers, Polartec Power Air will drastically improve how fabrics perform over their lifetime with respect to versatility, comfort, and sustainability,鈥 Gary Smith, Polartec鈥檚 CEO, said in a press release.听
Adidas is the first to bring the new technology to market, with a for men and women, though I鈥檝e been testing a prototype from Polartec directly. 听
Unsurprisingly, the material neither looks nor feels like a classic fleece. It鈥檚 smooth, almost silky next to the skin, and the hard-faced outer looks city sleek. But听on a day of ice climbing, with temperatures听in the low forties, it kept me as warm as the high-pile midlayers I often use. It also breathed so well that I wore it for six hours straight, from a predawn听car ride to an uphill approach to a freezing belay听to climbing, without ever feeling too hot or sweaty.听That said, without that traditional听fuzz, Power Air isn鈥檛听as snuggly, which I鈥檇 miss on camping trips and during other activities filled with downtime in chilly weather.
For this reason precisely, the fleece material we鈥檝e all come to love probably isn鈥檛 going anywhere anytime soon. But, just as the Polartec Alpha launch six years ago set off the active-insulation boom, Power Air may signal the beginning of another new category in midlayer design鈥攐ne that merges the air-capture principles of lofted insulation with the knit construction of a fleece, all without shedding and contributing to microplastic听pollution. Time will tell if it catches on.