Note: this shirt was provided for review.
When it comes to shirts for warmer weather, the prevailing advice is linen but as all of us reading this know: there is more to it than that. There’s Ramie for hot and humid, there are various synthetic options, and so much more. Western Rise has their Liberated Hemp Band-Collar Shirt they feel warrants a go.
I tested this shirt in the hot and humid weather of Houston, TX in 90°F weather with humidity around 70% and a dew point sailing north of 70°F. In other words: I tested this in insanely hot and sticky weather when my body was hardly acclimated to the climate.
Material
This is a hemp blend shirt coming in at 170 gsm, which is heavier than you might think you want for a warm weather shirt. The blend is 53% hemp / 43% Repreve (Recycled Polyester) / 3% elastane — though it feels like a heavy cotton shirt to the touch. Look closer and you notice little pills on the shirt, like many fabrics made for hot weather — but a tighter weave than most hot weather shirts.
At first the shirt was scratchy feeling, but after one wash that went away to a soft but thick material. As for stretch, it is not very noticeable — I didn’t even realize it was there until I looked up the precise blend of the fabric this review.
This blend is stated to resist odors and wrinkles and to absorb 20% moisture while remaining dry to touch. It lives up to this.
Fit and Style
This is a boxier and looser fit with a polarizing band collar. I found it works best paired with a more casual outfit like linen pants, boxier chinos or a pair of clean shorts with rolled up sleeves. Since the weather here is very warm, I wore it with shorts and rolled up sleeves. I like the style of this shirt, and I think the band collar offers a nice departure from what most people wear — but if you don’t like it in the photos you will not like it in person.
Performance
The hemp blend performs in line with most linen shirts. The material has a tighter weave so it is not as breezy, but breathes well enough and dries fast. It’s not hot wearing — despite feeling heavier than a comparable linen shirt.
The most impressive attribute is the wrinkle resistance. Most shirts made of linen live to wrinkle, but this shirt stays flat and tidy most of the day. It doesn’t have much of the linen look — so if that has always kept you from linen, this is a fabric you should look into.
As for odor resistance I only get 1-2 days of wear out of it. To be fair, I have been sweating a lot in the shirt, but it still starts to stink after a longer wear. You can rinse most of the smells out, so that is nice to know if you plan to travel with it. And, importantly, it dries fast — faster than linen.
My unscientific analysis is that this shirt wears 25% warmer than Outlier’s Breezy Linen and about 5-10% warmer than my linen shirts from Banana Republic. It is warmer than linen, but it keeps it’s composure much better than linen such that I think it is a better choice overall unless you are comparing it to something like the breezy linen from Outlier.
Pit sweat is another interesting part. I was sweating a lot in this shirt and should have been pitted-out, but instead I never felt that wetness under my arms. And I never noticed pit stains. This likely has to do with the amount of water it can absorb, coupled with how fast it dries. I bought a car in this shirt, going in and out of the dealership with a lot of stuff going on — I was sweating, but the shirt never showed it.
A-plus.
Overall
I’m a fan. And if you want linen like performance but you can’t stand that linen wrinkles the moment you look at it, you should consider this shirt. I hope they use this fabric in more styles as I would love to see a short sleeve variant with this same fabric.
Find it here.
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