Vapor Shake Dry Jacket

If you’re a sports fan, you’re probably familiar with teams that take the field or court wearing non-traditional uniforms, often a tweak to the team’s branding to jazz things up for a big game or maybe the first or last game of the season. The NFL has Nike’s Color Rush games on Thursday nights, and teams like the Oregon Ducks and Seattle Seahawks — both located near Nike’s headquarters in Oregon — seem to tweak their uniforms more often than others to show off the latest styles on behalf of their corporate partner.

At any rate, I enjoy this. I’m interested in the different designs even though the game itself is the larger spectacle. Last week at the ATA Trade Show, I found myself similarly distracted. I like taking little mental jabs at really bad logo’d polos that companies force their staff to wear. I try to tally the number of pleated khaki pants and 1990s-styled belts.

It’s like a game almost, a mental exercise to keep things fresh while I’m tromping around the show floor wishing I had more cushion in my shoe soles or hoping a cart of sandwiches and Diet Coke will roll my way. I know. This doesn’t make me sound like a nice person.

But, in moments of redemption, I don’t judge but instead covet branded attire worn by some booth staff at trade shows. One year, Hoyt staffers wore these fantastic plaid shirts with pearl snap buttons. I liked those and hoped to have one, but those shirts were produced for the staff only. It was not to be.

This year, it was SITKA’s staff that I admired. I’m in the booth looking at day packs and this dude walks up with a sweet lightweight, button-up shirt made of performance materials with an excellent color combo. I figured I wouldn’t be getting one of these shirts, either. I was wrong.

This particular shirt was one among many new shirts, pants and shorts in SITKA’s new Training, Travel and Workwear (TTW) line. It’s called the Globe Trotter.

SITKA's Globe Trotter shirt is designed for the minimalist traveler who wants comfort, performance, packability and style.

The TTW line marks the expansion of SITKA's brand into areas outside of hunting.

"As hunters, our lifestyle extends beyond any given hunting season," said Brad Christian, Brand Director at SITKA Gear. "This new line features purpose-driven design and technology to improve the lives of our tribe, year-round. This means training. This means travel. This means work."

Performance-wise this non-hunting line boasts all the technology one might expect from SITKA. But, honestly, performance technology can be boring if you’re just an average Joe trying to buy a shirt. It’s a lot of fabric science that brands trot out on sales material and websites, and digesting the information and what it actually means is like taking in a dozen donuts and waiting for your body to find something valuable in the empty calories.

If, however, you’re one that gets off on performance tech in apparel and could care less about style and appearance, fair enough. Let me introduce you to SITKA’s new Vapor Shake Dry Jacket, which gets an A++ in the performance department for all you techy customers as well as in the style department for all you vain divas like me.

Runners and others who often train outdoors can pack the Vapor Shake Dry Jacket away for times when the weather gets rough.

SITKA likens the jacket to a “reliable insurance policy” if you’re out running or training and the weather goes to doomsday dark or wet or cold. The jacket’s GORE-TEX with Permanent Beading Surface technology removes the face fabric of the garment to create a lightweight and 100 percent waterproof jacket. The Vapor easily fits in packs and pockets to provide peace of mind on long runs and exposed ridge traverses.

Nowadays — if honesty is what we’re after — all high-end apparel must perform. The expectation has been set. We’ve experienced the difference. SITKA delivers. Fine. But what I believe will draw customers to this new apparel line is the look and style of the gear and the trust customers have placed with the brand’s ability to make it feel like it belongs on your body.

I wrote last fall that SITKA’s hunting line simply felt different. It did. It was so lightweight, and it fit better than any hunting gear I’d owned. Just as the right bike looks and feels like an extension of a cyclist’s body, SITKA’s apparel feels like part of the hunter. It’s an extension of what’s already there, enhancing rather than reinventing. I expect the same for this line, only now I’ll feel that svelte while I’m training or traveling or working.

Many of the pieces featured in this new product line will be available February 5. If you’d like to check out the line’s shorts, travel pants, pullovers and other items, go here.