Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head), Colin opens the show discussing Polartec's recent announcement of their Shed Less fleece, a fabric that, according to the brand, reduces microfiber shedding by up to 85%.
Drawing on his experience, Colin offers insights into the challenges ingredient brands face when developing innovative products, especially given the outdoor apparel industry's tendency to prioritize cost over performance. This approach often causes product messaging, like the press release for Shed Less, to come across as greenwashing rather than true innovation.
Finally, Colin concludes with The Parting Shot and a tribute to JanSport co-founder Murray McCory, who recently passed away.
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Episode Transcript
Colin True
00:00:00.520 - 00:02:18.347
Halloween may be over, but there are plenty of scary stories out there about some of our industry's longest tenured brands. But hey, retail buyers, do we have a feel good story for you. Shake off those October Cobwebs with Royal Robins. Yeah, that's right, Royal Robins.
If you're like, really? Yeah, really.
Royal Robins is one of the true OGs of outdoor brands, part of that early group of California climbers who kind of kicked off the modern era right alongside Tompkins and Chouinard of the North Face and Patagonia. So if anyone can step up, they can.
I spoke a bit with Royals Brand president Eric Burbank and they're making moves and planning routes focused on natural fibers, tight merchandising, and a range that knows what it stands for. All stuff that Royal himself would be down with.
I'm hoping to have Eric on the Rock Fight soon so we can dig more into the rise of Royal and I will say I've been wearing one of their new wool pieces and feels pretty damn good. Guys, you can meet the Royal Robbins team in Kansas City at Goa Connect November 11th to the 14th. Shit, that's today. Stop by their booth and say hi.
Maybe throw a few rocks. If you do, just tell them the Colin sent you. Welcome to the Rock Fight, where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree.
This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head. I'm Colin True, It's Monday and guess what guys, I'm running solo today.
Producer Dave is in Kansas City at the Goa Connect show, so all of you Producer Dave heads out there will have to wait till later this week when Dave checks in. But I'm still going to give you my thoughts on a story to come out of the outdoor industry this past week.
But before we get to that, some housekeeping, programming, reminders, all that good stuff. Have you subscribed yet to Rock Fight's weekly newsletter? It's called News from the Front, and if you're not guys, you're missing out.
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Okay, let's start the show.
Chris DeMakes
00:02:18.411 - 00:02:22.455
Welcome to the Rock Fight. Rock Fight. Rock Fight.
Colin True
00:02:23.635 - 00:08:52.403
All right, so over the course of time hosting the Rock Fight, I've often talked about my career in the outdoor industry, including my time at Polartech.
And Polartech is a central player in the topic I want to cover today, as this week they put out a press release about a new product they called Shed Less, which is a type of synthetic fleece that they claim will shed fewer microfibers than traditional synthetic fleece, which for those of you who may not know, Polartech is credited as the inventor of synthetic fleece. So they have a lot of knowledge on this topic.
But there is some serious greenwashing at play in this press release and that's what I want to get into today because this is a great example of something that needs to change in the outdoor industry.
But before I get into all of that, I want to give you some context of what Polartech and other textile, fabric, and material makers do, because it's relevant to both the story we're going to talk about and some of the larger issues we face when it comes to how stuff gets made in the outdoor industry and the larger stuff universe. Apparel industry, whatever.
The vast majority of consumers out there think that the brand name on the gear or apparel or footwear they buy actually makes the stuff they're buying, but they don't. Putting it as simply as possible. Think of your favorite brands as glorified project managers.
After they design something on paper, the process to get that thing made, it moves to outside players. Every little bit of your favorite jacket was sourced from somewhere else.
There were fabric makers, zipper makers, button makers, elastic cord makers, and then all of those makers sent their parts of your favorite jacket to a factory where the thing is then assembled, and that's where it actually gets made. And no, that factory isn't owned by the brand. They're typically independently owned and operated.
And in many cases, your favorite jacket might have been created alongside similar jackets from competitive brands.
Now, there are textile and material manufacturers and garment factories all over the world, but of course, the vast majority of this work is done in China. And that's really the simplest way to put all of this. Now back to Polartech. Firstly, let me say Polartec. It's not an outdoor brand.
Polartec is a branded textile maker who largely makes fabrics suited for outdoor or active pursuits. Their customers are outdoor and active brands. This is why you won't find a Polartec garment at rei. Because of competitive concerns.
Most branded textile companies like Polartec or Primaloft or Scholler won't make their own apparel because they don't want their main customers to see them as a competitor and then stop buying fabric from them. Gore, you know, the maker of Gore Tex? Ever heard of it? They make their own apparel, but they're pretty much the only ones who do this.
In fact, they've been selling their own branded apparel Goreware pretty much as long as Polartech has been a brand. So with all of that in mind, let's have a look at this latest press release and product from Polartech.
Now, according to the press release, Polartech's Shed Less technology quote reduces fiber fragment shedding and home laundering by up to 85% without sacrificing performance. And the reduction in shedding means fewer microfibers ending up in oceans and waterways, reducing impact on the planet.
Also, and I'm still quoting here, the advanced fabric launches to market in Forlough's new Raider vest, setting a new standard for eco conscious performance wear. Okay, that's the end of the quote.
And okay, anyone who has a basic grasp of the stuff we talk about here on the show would probably see a lot of promise in those statements. But there are three things that stand out to me in this press release that makes this greenwashing. First, the 85% less shedding stat.
Now, later in the release they say they came to that number after comparing shedless fabric against a baseline fabric, which they don't disclose what that is and which kind of makes the statistic kind of meaningless. Like it's 85% of what? Exactly. Second, there's the positioning of Shed Less as assisting the microfiber problem.
Now, I don't think you should pat yourself on the back unless it eliminates microfibers. Even if that 85% stat is real, that still allows microfibers to enter waterways.
So you really shouldn't this a new standard for eco conscious performance wear. That's an insanely high bar to set and impossible for Shed Less to clear it. And thirdly, Forlo as their launch partner.
Now, I don't say that as a dig at Forlo, who is an awesome Montana based hunting apparel brand. In fact, the real story and a Polartech Forlo collaboration is that this is a Made in the USA story.
And if President Orange Douchebag follows through on his plans for tariffs. A brand like Forlo is one to highlight for manufacturing in the US using US made fabrics from Polartech.
But for Polartech there is no way that Forlo was stopped. Number one on the who should we launch shed less technology with list I guarantee you.
Although I have no insider knowledge here, I have not worked at Polartech since I think 2017. I am just going off my own history that Patagonia was likely earmarked as the launch partner for this product.
Which because that didn't happen means there are likely other either cheaper or more effective solutions available in the works that bigger brands with broader reach like a Patagonia are interested in. Bigger than Shed less, I mean.
Okay, now listen, I'm not looking to take down my former employer or trap them in some sort of aha, gotcha kind of moment and I'm actually going to defend them in a minute because this isn't a situation entirely of their own making.
But greenwashing is a problem because consumers are looking to be absolved for their sins when it comes to what they buy, and press releases like this cover up the problems that exist while allowing consumers to consume that in and of itself is greenwashing.
This isn't a company like a polar tech twisting their mustache, cackling evilly and saying they're happy to destroy the natural world while misleading the public along the way. We've ended up in this situation because of the cyclical push and pull of what brands say they want and what they're actually willing to do.
The stuff that a company like Apollertech can make is incredible. During my time there, it was astounding to observe what was actually possible when it comes to how to make fabrics and what a fabric can do.
There are a lot of solutions to the sustainability conversation that can be addressed in how we make things. And here is where my Sauron style flaming eyeball shifts from the polar text of the world to the brands.
Because in order for these solutions to be put in place, brands have to ask for it and be willing to pay for it.
Now we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, I'm going to tell you why a brand that I worked with refused to pay for what they called the best fabric their athletes had ever tried. That's right after this we believe in.
Chris DeMakes
00:08:52.419 - 00:09:34.915
The sock to make you happy we believe in the sock all for comfort we believe in the sock you don't have to bust, lift or fall we believe in free range toes and having room to roam in Fine gauge Merino wool is comfortable. Asshole. We believe in made in USA and we believe in doing what we say. We all sit. We sit. That's right. We're Fitz. We sit. That's right.
And we believe in the stock. Fitz. Fitz. Fitz. We believe in the socks. Fitz fits. Fitz.
Colin True
00:09:35.575 - 00:16:27.375
That was Fitz socks coming in hot or at least thermo regulated. They're bringing a fresh new sock sound to 2025. If you don't know Fitz, you should.
They're the even smarter merino performance brand with patented technology that does what it says it does. It fits whole foot comfort, baby Check fits out on tour from November 11th to the 14th in Kansas City at Goa Connect.
If you don't have an appointment, go by their booth and say hi. Who knows, you may run into Travis and Taylor just hanging out and talking socks. And now back to the show.
Okay, here's some inside baseball about inventing new fabrics. And this is the stuff that a brand like Polartech does and does really well.
Because making something new is hard and it's expensive and very few brands want to pay for that. Here's an example. When I was at Polartec, we came out with a new base layer fabric called power wool.
Now, power wool takes the best qualities of wool and synthetics and merges them together by placing the wool next to your skin, where wool is most effective and synthetics on the face or outside of the fabric where it is most effective in that it can dry more quickly than just using wool. It's truly a one plus one equals three type of invention. It's awesome.
But because it utilizes wool and at the time of this anecdote was new, so it had not yet scaled, it was also relatively expensive. Shortly after this product launch, I went with my sales rep to call on a large running brand who loved power wool.
When we showed it to them and made sample garments for their pro runners, like Boston Marathon competitive level pro runners. And now these samples were made with the understanding of the cost of the fabric.
The brand went into this knowing how much we were charging to buy powerwool for them to use, skipped to the end and their runners loved it. This brand told us power wool got the highest marks that any new fabric had ever received.
And their athletes were in love with the feel and the performance but. And you knew there was a but coming, right?
Despite understanding the cost of the fabric before running their trial, and despite the overwhelming response to the fabric from the athletes they presumably have on their payroll or at least pay them something, the brand told me that they'd only pay half the price we quoted them because they didn't think their consumers would pay what the garment would need to cost if they paid full price. They in fact actually asked us to dumb down the fabric, to decontent it in order to make it cheaper.
And nothing, by the way, about this story is unusual. And these types of interactions with the biggest brands in our industry is what has formed a lot of what you may hear me say here on the Rock.
Fight brands are in the position of continuing to tell innovation stories with their products while also keeping their price points competitive for the broadest possible market. So when they approach those who are actually making the stuff, folks like polartech, it's through that lens.
How do we get something different and unique but pay the least amount for it? We want the story, but we don't want to shell out for it.
And that then informs how fabric and material makers approach brands and why Polartech would position itself in such a grandiose way when it of something like shed less fleece. And my hope in talking about this isn't that people will change how they shop. We know that consumers are unreliable.
It's that the brands and makers will make less obvious stumbles. In this specific example, I think it was wrong of Polar Tech to highlight this product.
If you can make your fleece shed less like, just do that for the solutions. We're looking forward to the increasing stuff problem we have in the world of fashion and apparel. This isn't groundbreaking.
This is more of a doing the best that we can do kind of initiative. If anything, bringing attention to yourself when it comes to microplastics, when most of your products are plastic based is probably just a bad idea.
A lot of people think apparel is the only or biggest contributor of microplastics entering our natural world. But the truth is that much of what comes off of our clothing is captured in our home laundering and local wastewater treatment facilities.
Apparel still needs to be addressed without a doubt when it comes to microplastics, but it's not the same as the microplastics we get from paint or tire wear. You know, none of that is captured and anytime it rains, it just washes right into our waterways. It's all bad, by the way.
I'm not suggesting that like one is better than the others, but it's the perception of one over the other. That said, perception is reality and for many synthetic fleas is the devil when it comes to microplastics.
So why highlight this in a press release, especially when again, the Cool story here is US made textiles being manufactured into apparel in the US by Forlo, a cool US based hunting brand.
Ultimately, I think this is just a misread by polartech of what is needed or desired by the modern outdoor marketplace and is a misunderstanding about how to position a technology or product to better effect. Due to decades of having to solve for the problems that outdoor brands continually throw in their faces, it's not all on them.
And while I not only live this problem and I understand it, I also know that it's antiquated.
The upside is that most of the issues I described here apply largely to big revenue driven brands, the big corporate overlords, the publicly traded entities out there.
The future is hopefully with the brands that are just starting to emerge, more and more new brands are starting to launch based on the values that outdoor consumers expect of them and don't have to rely on tactics that can be interpreted as greenwashing. And I really hope, I think we should all hope that that's the future of our industry.
Now here's where we would typically bring in producer Dave, but he's not with me today, guys. So I guess that's the final word on this topic.
And that means that it's time time for our weekly segment to make sure you are getting more out of the outdoors. It is time for more with Thermore.
Well, a lot of talk today about ingredient brands, but did you know that founded in 1972, Thermore is the original ingredient brand and a leader in the development of advanced fibers and innovative structures that help your body maintain its natural warmth.
And if you're an apparel designer or developer looking for innovative ways to keep your brand's customers warm in a more sustainable way, look no further than Thermore Eco Down Fibers Ocean, which are exclusively made from Ocean Cycle certified plastics, the same ocean bound plastics that make up as much as 80% of plastic pollution in our oceans. Eco Down Fibers Ocean is light, it's extremely soft, it's warm and it's durable and allows for a more sustainable choice.
So if you're listening to this and you are right now looking ahead to spring and fall 2026 in your product development cycle, reach out to Thermore today and see how you can add Eco Down Fibers Ocean to your next garment. Because whether it's making amazing new garments or staying warm and safe out on the trail, you can do more with Thermore. All right.
And because we're running solo today, it's just time for the parting shot, guys.
Chris DeMakes
00:16:30.125 - 00:16:38.133
This place that town forgot. Let's take out a rock, get head on home. It's time for our parting song.
Colin True
00:16:38.309 - 00:19:04.317
Yep. Time for the parting shot. I got some other stories we're gonna talk about later this week, so come back for that. Right now.
It is a Collins solo episode. So we're moving right into the parting shot. And then we're gonna turn you loose to get your work week started.
This week's parting shot, it's for JanSport Co founder Murray McCorry, who passed away in Seattle recently at the age of 80. And my condolences go to his family. But let's think about JanSport for a second.
It's the brand that Murray co founded in 1967 and leaves behind, even though he hasn't owned it since he sold it to K2 in 1972. Now, there's so much that has come out of the outdoor industry that has informed or has been part of popular culture.
Last couple weeks, we've talked about the Vasque Sundowner.
You've got the North Face Denali, the Patagonia Snap Tee, the Timberland yellow boot, the Merrell Jungle MOC Chaco Z strap, sandal vans, classic checkered slip on. But it's possible that the one that has endured the Most is the JanSport super brake backpack.
Most of the other outdoor products I listed became iconic for their place in fashion, but the Super Brake was launched in 1979 as a school backpack. And guess what? It still exists. It looks almost identical to the original look.
I was born four years before the first Super Break, and I had one in high school that came after a stint with a lame L.L. bean backpack that had my initials stitched onto it. You guys remember those? It was. Ugh. It was so bad.
But now, 45 years later, since the product launch, my daughter, 13 years old, she has a Super Brake backpack.
Murray's run as a co founder may have been short, but it was his adjustable hiking backpack design that allowed that brand to start, allowed JanSport to start. And if that doesn't happen, then there's no Super Break and one less icon in the outdoor product hall of Fame.
This parting shot is a celebration of life and legacy. This one is for you, Murray McCrory. Rest in peace. Wish your family the best. Thank you for the Super Break.
Even though you didn't design the Super Break, but your company did. That's it. That's what I got for you guys today. This is what happens when people have work to do when they go to trade shows.
I didn't get to go to this trade show. Although I'm going to tre and switch back next week so we can wrap it up there. The Rock Flight's a production of Rock Flight llc.
Our producer today was me. Art direction provided by Sarah, the pod mother at gensert. I'm Colin True. Thanks for listening. And he's here to take us out.
I had to call him in a little early today because of the shorter episode. It's Chris Demakes and he's going to sing the rock fight fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock fighters.
Chris DeMakes
00:19:04.381 - 00:19:11.805
Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight.
Colin True
00:19:11.965 - 00:19:12.693
Here we go.
Chris DeMakes
00:19:12.789 - 00:20:00.235
Welcome to the rock fight where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree.
We talk about human powered outdoor activities and pic bites about topics that we find interesting like pop culture music, the latest movie reviews, ideas that aim for the head. This is where we speak our truth. This is where we speak our truth. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Welcome to the rock flight. Rock fight. Rock fight.
Welcome to the rock flight. Rock light. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Welcome to the rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight.
Colin True
00:20:02.215 - 00:20:03.551
Rock ride.
Chris DeMakes
00:20:03.743 - 00:20:04.695
Rock flag fight.