Technology has been great for helping us find taxis and stalk exes, but its impact on workwear has been minimal. A pity, since we spend so much time in the office. The modern suit-n-shirt combination for men was established at the start of the 20th century and survives happily to this day.
Can technology change that? What do the coming years hold for our everyday clothes?
For starters, in future everyone will be slim. Or at least that’s the only conclusion I can draw from my Apollo shirt, sent over from America advertised as the next evolution in workwear. It fits nicely around the neck, but then constricts tightly around the chest and belly. As I clamber into it I understand what the Daily Mail means when it says a celebrity has “poured their curves” into an outfit. It baffles me why slim-fits are made for fat necks. Anyone with a 17-inch neck is hardly likely to taper from then on down to a lithe base.
No matter. The Apollo shirt is designed to keep you warm when you are cold, and cool you when you’re warm. (Gladstone ascribed similar properties to a cup of tea.) The shirt, however, depends on Phase Change Materials, as used by Nasa in space suits. “They act like a battery,” reads the blurb, “storing heat away from you when you overheat, then releasing it back at you when you return to an air-conditioned office.”
The material took a bit of getting used to. It has a tightly webbed top layer that reminds me of the Aertex shirts we wore during the summer at primary school. Underneath it is slightly stretchy, useful when I want to strap myself into it, but a bit peculiar. Stretchy fabric implies imminent sport and so fills me with dread.
Apart from that the shirt was perfectly plain, in gleaming white. It is labelled a “dress shirt”, but I’m not sure how comfortable I’d feel wearing it to a black-tie function. Something about technical gear resists formality. It’s more of a smart casual vibe, I think, to be worn with jeans while you stroll through some climactically variable landscape – London in August, for example, which veers from sultry heat to freezing rain. I can report feeling neither too hot nor too cold, though I did get wet. Perhaps a waterproof Apollo is in the pipeline.
For an amusing photo we head to the Ice Bar off Regent Street. The shirt’s promoters are keen to stress that the heat-retention properties do not extend to -7, the temperature at which the bar is kept. But as I lean against the bar my torso feels surprisingly unchilly – especially compared to my hands, from which I soon begin to lose sensation. Perhaps my “battery” is kicking into life.
The shirt is fine. I suppose my objection to the Apollo is that the beauty of shirts lies in their simplicity.There’s a reason the design has barely changed in a century.
They look and feel best when made from plain but good quality cotton, worn in a simple colour.
They don’t need bells and whistles. Or if bells and whistles are to be attached, they need to be amazing. For most of us, the environments where we wear shirts are already tightly controlled and air-conditioned. The Apollo feels like a slightly stretchy solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist.
ministryofsupply.com; $98/£60
