A comfortable summer tee-shirt
Swedish company Klättermusen makes a range of top-quality outdoor clothing that’s not yet very well known in Britain. Recently I’ve been trying a few of their items. The first one is the Vee Tee, described as ‘a summer tee for light hiking and relaxing’. It’s made from a mix of organic cotton, Tencel (a cellulose product), and polypropylene.
The fabric is very soft and comfortable with a different finish inside and out. Klättermusen says the Tencel is next to the skin to enable moisture transport while the polypropylene is for durability and fast drying and the cotton for comfort.
As with other Swedish companies Klättermusen has good environmental credentials. Tencel is biodegradable and requires less energy and water to make than synthetic fabrics. Organic cotton is far better than conventional cotton, which is one of the most polluting crops, and is grown without pesticides or chemical fertilisers. Polypropylene is a petroleum product, but it can be recycled and is less toxic than many plastics.
The Vee Tee has seamless shoulders to prevent abrasion from rucksack straps, an extended back and a small zipped pocket, unusual in a tee-shirt. The Large size is a loose fit on me, which I prefer in a tee-shirt. It weighs 175 grams.
I pushed the Vee Tee a bit harder than ‘light hiking’ by wearing it on an overnight trip to Braeriach in the Cairngorms in very hot weather. It handled the inevitable sweat well, never feeling clammy or sticky, and dried fairly fast when I stopped to camp with no damp chilly feel when the temperature dropped in the evening. The next day it performed just the same and remained very comfortable. By the end of the two days it was quite sweat-stained, but it didn’t smell at all. The stains all came out in the wash.
On less strenuous days the Vee Tee has been pleasant to wear. It works fine under a light fleece or windshirt in cooler weather too. As a tee-shirt for walking it’s fine.
£60
