Indestructible Chinos

Name: Equator T Shirt. Mint Green edition
Brand: Vollebak
SKU: TPS063MNTXSM
Price: 95 GBP
Availability: InStock

We’ve taken the world’s most dependable pants, and made them even more dependable.

£395

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Strengthened with Dyneema®
Pockets reinforced with Cordura
Garment washed for softness

Like most men’s clothing, chinos emerged from war. They were slim-fitting, flat-fronted, functional, and most importantly… really really dependable. By 1902, after heavy field-testing, they’d been made an official part of the US Army uniform. Once World War II was over, the guys who’d fought went off to college still wearing them – turning them into an instant hit on the Ivy League campuses. And their reputation was only cemented as a staple of mid-century menswear when they became the standard issue kit for John F. Kennedy and Steve McQueen.

Which is why, 120+ years later, you still don’t need to mess with the design. So we haven’t. Instead we’ve taken pants you’ve always been able to rely on, and woven them with the strongest fibre on Earth… so you can rely on them even more.

While they look and feel like regular chinos, every pair of Indestructible Chinos is made with a blend of cotton and Dyneema® – which is the same stuff used in body armour, arctic ropes and the sides of tanks. Of course you’d never know this just by putting them on. The Dyneema® is woven in with the cotton during the weaving process, so you’ll only ever feel the softness of the cotton, not the strength of the Dyneema®. And they’ve also been garment washed so they feel lived in from day one.

Equator T Shirt

Ultralight. And built to keep you cool in the heat.

£95

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Technical Details

Material made in Italy: 100% mercerised Pima cotton

Highly breathable

Fast drying

Material weighs 140g/m2

T shirt weighs 130 grams

Machine wash 30°C

Constructed in Portugal

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Made with silk-like Pima cotton

While cotton has been cultivated for over 5,000 years, not all cottons are equal. Today upland cotton makes up about 90% of global cotton production, and it’s used for most cotton t shirts. Pima cotton is rarer and only makes up a fraction of all the cotton produced worldwide – under 5%. But it's not only softer and lighter than regular cotton, it’s also more resistant to pilling, fraying and tearing.

Pima cotton is super soft and strong

The fine strands that make up a raw piece of cotton are called staples, and the longer these strands are, the stronger and silkier the cotton will be. Pima cotton is one of the few types of cotton which has extra long staples. On a practical level it means there are fewer edges when the fibres are knitted into fabric, because there are fewer strands. And this is what produces a material that’s really soft and really strong at the same time.

The cotton is mercerised to keep you cool

In hot and humid conditions, the last thing you want is for your clothes to cling to you and stick to your skin, so the Equator T Shirt goes through a process called mercerisation. Designed to make the t shirt feel even smoother and silkier, it also helps it hold its shape and structure in the heat. So instead of sticking to you, it’s designed to keep a gap between your skin and the material, so that air can still move between your body and the t shirt to help cool you down.

It’s ultralight and fast drying from rain and humidity

Humidity and rainstorms are going to soak you one way or another at the equator, so the key is about drying really fast, rather than trying to avoid getting wet. The t shirt is ultra lightweight at 130 grams, so it dries quickly. It means the shirt is at home in a rainforest as it is in the city.