Equator Shirt

Life at the equator offers us a glimpse of our future – a world of non-stop sun, heat, humidity and rainstorms. So we’ve built the Equator Shirt to equip you for it. To build a shirt that can work in all 40,000km of the equator we started with a world-class base material – a rare cotton called Karnak Menoufi. One of the lightest, softest fabrics on the planet, Karnak Menoufi is a silk-like cotton that’s only found in the Nile Delta, and only grows in the years when the rain, soil and wind conditions are perfect.

While Karnak Menoufi is already extremely soft and robust, we’ve added durability and stretch by combining the cotton with elastane and an ultrafine nylon in Italy. Together the combination is so soft and lightweight that it has to be spun and woven with the same techniques and on the same looms that are used for silk. The result is an advanced, abrasion resistant material which feels almost silk-like next to your skin.

As global temperatures rise and climate zones shift, clothes have to respond. Weighing just 167 grams, the Equator Shirt is the most technical lightweight shirt ever built, and less than half the weight of our Planet Earth Shirt. Built for the heat, the Equator Shirt is highly breathable, ultra lightweight and packable – so it’s perfect for any adventure. Whether it’s on your back or in your backpack you’ll never notice it’s there.

We’ve built 10 concealed air vents throughout the shirt to cool you down, with two different methods of engineering. Designed for hot, humid and arid environments, each vent opens and closes either with body movement or with zip closures. And we’ve put them in the places you’ll need them the most – across your back and on your chest.

The two chest pockets are built with angled lockable zippers. Inside each of the pockets are hidden vents for when you need to cool down. Simply unzip each pocket to reveal perforated laser cut panels that will create multiple air streams. When you’re moving fast this will channel any air from the outside directly towards your chest to cool you faster.

Another 8 air vents are positioned across your upper back. These are engineered to stay open and bring constant airflow. Two layers of fabric overlap and are securely fixed with bartacks. It means they won’t blow open and your skin will stay protected, but the air can flow in.

The last thing you want when you’re pulling any extreme or repetitive move in the heat is resistance from your kit. The Equator Shirt has 2 way horizontal stretch, so whichever way you stretch, pull or turn, it will simply go with you. We’ve also used twin needle stitching on every seam, which is two lines of stitching instead of one to double the strength.

Every button on the shirt is made of buffalo imitation bioresin – a natural, non-toxic and water-based material we’ve produced by combining plant and vegetable waste with a polyester resin used by the aerospace industry. Lightweight and heat resistant, all the buttons are sculpted with a highly polished 30 degree taper towards the edges to make them easy to slip into place.

Even the way the shirt buttons up has been engineered to work with sweaty hands and hostile conditions. Rather than being sewn onto the shirt, the buttons on the front of the shirt have all been threaded onto a high-strength woven polyester tape that runs the shirt’s entire length. The tape is then stitched onto reinforced panels above and below each button. The construction allows the shirt to stretch and flex with you, as each button is free to slide 2 centimetres up and down its section of military tape.