Anybody that knows me knows that I am a merino wool fanboy. Ever since buying a, long discontinued, Giro New Roads polo bike shirt on closeout, and then another, and then another, back in 2016 I have been trying to accumulate as much merino as possible. I have 2 of the Giro shirts that I wear commuting every day for a week or more without washing and they are incredible. I can hang them in the locker room for the day and they just don't stink. A normal bike shirt would be too ripe to do that from the moment I turned out of my driveway.
 |
| Day 7 - Ice Fishing |
Since then I have been looking for deals on merino clothing wherever I can. Ebay, AliExpress, Amazon, Icebreaker, SmartWool, Minus33, LL Bean, Showers Pass. (I'd give you links but I am too lazy) Anywhere I could find a shirt for a good deal I would buy it. What I have found is that 100% merino is the only way to go for me. I had some great luck at AliExpress with some T-Shirts that were very reasonably priced, fit well and passed the test. I also had some AliExpress merino shirts that were "100 % merino" that stunk after 2 days of wear. If you don't know what AliExpress is, stay away, it's addictive. You end up getting packages in the mail that you forgot ordering. And how can they ship a $5 product all the way from China for free when it costs me at least $12 to ship ANYTHING through the post office? But I digress.
 |
| Day 20 - Dog photo bomb |
Fast forward to 2024. I decided to try to extend my merino passion beyond workout and casual clothes. My search for, um, economy merino dress shirts came up short so I expanded my range to the "you want how much for a shirt!?" range. I know that people pay decent money for shirts out there but I am cheap and shop sales and at goodwill (Ok, my wife does that for me). My upper end for a shirt has always been about $50. And that better be a damn nice shirt. Actually, I did buy a very nice Icebreaker(?) button-down shirt a few years ago on closeout that I have used every year for traveling. But the theme here is that I don't pay $138.00 for shirts.
 |
| Day 32 - Who can guess? |
My search for a nice dress shirt ended at Wool & Prince, a brand that had never even entered my radar. They have quite a few styles and both tall and slim options. After a little hemming and hawing I decided to try one. I think the 100 Day Challenge was actually part of my decision. I figured if a shirt was good enough for people to wear 100 days in a row it might actually be worth the money. Even though I am a little fatter than I want to be right now, I went for a large slim instead of a medium tall. I also went for the heaviest weight fabric that they had the 210 button-down.
 |
| Day 90 - Home Sweet Home |
I actually waited a month from when I received the shirt until I started the challenge. This was both to see if I liked it enough to wear 100 days and because I had a trip to St Martin planned and a heavy weight long sleeve shirt was not in the daily wardrobe down there. Although I did wear it on my travel days. The challenge started in earnest on Feb 12. The hardest requirement other than wearing the shirt every day was to take a picture of yourself in the shirt. Boy did I get some lousy pictures! And a few good ones.
 |
| Day 1 - Lousy Pic (but the shirt looks good) |
Because I bike commute to work there were some logistics to work out to make sure the shirt always ended up in the right place every day. My commute is substantial enough that the shirt ends up soaked by the end of the ride, winter or summer. Other than that wearing the same shirt was no big deal. I think I flew mostly under the radar of most of the people at work. You can do the challenge with or without washing the shirt. I probably washed it 4-5 times in 100 days. Usually because it picked up smoke or cooking smells. Sometimes just because a load was going and the shirt was, you know, dirty. I wore it faithfully almost all the days, although I did change out of it on days that involved working on a tractor or doing some other task that might get a shirt dirty or possibly ruined. I'm sure my average was well over 8 hours/day.
 |
| Day 53 - April Snowstorm |
Day 100! I'm not sure what to wear tomorrow. Actually it will probably be a different shirt because this one is at work and I will be driving off-site from home in the morning. I won't miss the shirt shuffle or the daily photo. Indecently, I bought a different Wool & Prince shirt off ebay during the challenge and am looking forward to wearing it. I do think that I will try to pare down my wardrobe of dress shirts. Realizing that you can wear one shirt for months is definitely eye opening.
 |
| Day 57 - Total Eclipse |
The Review: Honestly, this is a great shirt. Considering that if I wore another shirt 1 day/week it would take 2 years to put this much wear on a shirt and this one still looks pretty new. I really like the feel of the heavyweight, 210, wool. I never thought I would mention the "drape" of a garment but this shirt hangs very well. The fabric has enough stretch to make it very comfortable.
 |
| Day 100 - That's a wrap |
Now to get a different color and destroy 100 selfies, once I get my free shirt that is.
No comments:
Post a Comment