The internet erupted into fits of laughter last week when Liam Gallagher fronted Berghaus’s re-issue of its Trango jacket. The blue, red and yellow raincoat was designed in 1986 for a British attempt to summit K2. “Is he wearing a Lidl coat?!” they roared. My first thought was — they can’t be from London. If they were, they would know everyone cool here wears a coat just like it; that anyone worth their Himalayan salt lamp in east London dresses as if they were about to embark on the Three Peaks Challenge.
This isn’t a new phenomenon — you couldn’t get a pint in The Spurstowe Arms without being stomped on by a Craghoppers hiking boot and brushing up against an Arc’teryx rain shell jacket last year, either — but it is going to define winter 2024 as well. The Gen Z contingent call this gorpcore (borrowing its name from the “good ol’ raisins and peanuts” trail mix acronym), but the trend forecaster WGSN is convinced we have moved a step further.
“We are now seeing the rise of prepare-wear — an evolution from gorpcore,” says Sofia Martellini, its senior strategist. “As climate change continues to challenge weather patterns and natural disasters become increasingly common, we will need clothing that can adapt to different temperatures and climate circumstances more easily.” Basically, this year’s look is mountaineering gear — with a hint of apocalypse.
Everyone appears to have taken note. Puma has enlisted Skepta for a second collaboration, this week dropping a Tech-Luxe Collection consisting of hiking boots and Pertex puffer jackets. The Britpop revival has fanned the flames, seeing Gallagher also front Stone Island’s winter campaign in September and launch its new “Glass parka” (“made from polyester mesh protected by a semi-gloss transparent polyurethane film”) with the label this week. September saw his son Lennon and ex-wife Patsy Kensit model for Italian outerwear label Napapijri’s large, Arctic Circle archival capsule push as well.
The North Face’s latest collaboration with Japanese label Undercover dropped yesterday, and Represent 247, Manchester’s hottest streetwear label, launched its first, 44-piece “vintage hiking” collection this week. “There’s a pull from the lifestyle market for highly technical products that look good regardless of whether you intend to go up a mountain or not,” explains Charlie Pym, senior vice-president of Berghaus. For this reason heritage brands like Berghaus, which was founded in 1966, alongside industry newcomers, are all piling into the resurgence.
How to dress the part
Look to #gorpcore on Instagram (home to 251,000 posts) and you will quickly pick up on how outdoors devotees wear this trend. In short, everything from the family walking/ski cupboard, all at once. From the feet up this includes, but should not be limited to: hikers, thick walking socks, long johns, waterproof trousers, Uniqlo Heattech second-skins, bright-coloured fleeces, a shell or puffer jacket, Alps-appropriate gloves, balaclava, cycling shades and an Arc’teryx “Head Toque” to polish everything off. Needless to say, all this is a bit much for the Central line.
To flirt with it without fainting, celebrity stylist Clementine Brown explains: “It’s an anti-fashion trend adopting the uncool brands, so you only need one or two pieces to tap in.” Brands that fit the category range from Helly Hansen and Mountain Warehouse to Jack Wolfskin and Patagonia. “The entry point is buying your first pair of Salomon trainers, unisex and very specific — the ones without laces [helpfully their first UK store opens in Covent Garden tomorrow]. Next up for women it’s a pair of parachute pants, for men it’s a North Face jacket,” she continues. “It’s a tribal thing; basically the adopted look of the modern hipster.”
A number of cool, more fashion-centric brands are worth a look at, too. Rains is the 2012-founded Danish outerwear label beloved in chic circles (and make those waterproof, roll-top backpacks every banker has on the Tube), while Goldwin do great puffers, Diemme has smart walking boots, Nobis prides itself on outerwear “with performance attributes like windproofing, waterproofing and breathability”, and 66°North, Iceland’s go-to outerwear label, only increases its now cult fanbase year on year.
Whatever comes next?
Any base camp-literate readers rolling their eyes at these pub-going phoneys, with a wardrobe already kitted out with the above — hold fire. In line with WGSN’s prediction of the rise in prepare-wear, simple waterproofing is not where the buck stops. Enter Vollebak, a maverick science-fashion lab based in King’s Cross, founded by twins Nick and Steve Tidball in 2008 with a mission “to create things which don’t yet exist”.
Their achievements thus far are quite extraordinary. “I came across Dyneema, a material that really no one in fashion was interested in. It is an ultra-strong molecular structure used for Arctic ropes,” says Nick. After plenty of back and forth with Italian mills, they finally created “a puffer jacket which you could barely cut with a blade”.
This is only one in a long list of inventions. Others include a coat made of copper (£1,195), a 100-year T-shirt built to outlive its wearer (£110) and an “apocalypse jacket” built with a super-material called polybenzimidazole, invented by Dr Marvel for Nasa’s Apollo programme in the Sixties (£397).
The Vollebak team of 35 work on 150 new projects at any given time. Their latest, out this November, combines aerogel — insulation for rockets — with the orange fabric they “finally” sourced from the parachutes Nasa used to land the last Rover on Mars. The waitlist for this “Martian Aerogel jacket”, £2,495, is open now. They also keep four or five “bigger projects” ticking over. What could be bigger, I ask naively. Their years-long investigation making steps towards the first invisibility jacket, for one.
This winter though? Why not stick with the Salomons.
