Thursday, December 10, 2009

A Clothing Experiment

I'm a big fan of self-experimentation. I have an RFID implant.


This winter, I'm testing a business suit made from Gortex and Kevlar. Why not wear the same clothing to Board meetings that I'd wear on Mt. Washington?

Gortex is expensive. Arcteryx gear is expensive. However, if the suit is the modern equivalent of the Man in the White Suit - waterproof, windproof, stain proof and essentially indestructible, it may be the last suit I will ever buy.

Today, I road my bike in a Boston blizzard, below freezing, to 7 meetings in 5 locations, wearing nothing but my suit. I arrived at each meeting warm and dry.

Here are the specifics of what I wore


Arcteryx Veilance Blazer size 42 (Gortex)

Arcteryx Veilance Stealth Shirt size Medium (Kevlar)

Arcteryx Veilance Stealth Pants size 32 (Schoeller)

in rain, sleet, snow, and gale force winds, arriving at my meetings like it was a Summer day.

The purchase was an early Christmas gift from my wife and although it was quite expensive, I suspect the cost per day will be less than Brooks Brothers, given the longevity and utility of the materials. A very successful experiment thus far.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

In addition, wouldn't this gear reduce potential injuries in case of a spill from the bike, at least from a rasberry perspective?

Bernz said...

No comment about tech, security, food or healthcare for me today, but I do have one about the shoes.

The problem I have with vegan dyes for shoes are that rain and snow can make the shoes "spotty" and here in Boston, there's enough of that weather to make it an issue.

Have you ever had problems with that?

Anonymous said...

The next logical step is to arrange for those meetings to be on top of Mt. Washington (and not in the visitor center).

John Waldron said...

Cool! And I'm only a 20 min ride from the Arc'teryx outlet in Vancouver! Thanks for the tip and this is so much better looking than the classic GoreTex jacket.

Does the outfit make any "swishing" sound when moving about or is the material softer than plain GoreTex?

Anonymous said...

Kevlar shirt? Is it bulletproof? I didn't know health IT was so dangerous!

John Moehrke said...

John, I find it that you are willing to spend top-dollar for a Gortex suit because it has long term benefits that you see will payout over time, while in the same blog tell the whole healthcare community that they should settle for a low grade solution even when that solution is known to be deficient in security, determinism, versioning, reliability, flexibility, etc.

See Double Standard?

Unknown said...

john - the suit looks great but what is the carbon footprint for all of this synthetic material?