Western Rise Session Tee

Note: this item was sent by Western Rise at no cost.

Along with the Movement Shorts (our review), I have been testing Western Rise’s new Session Tee which is made for active/workouts and is first and foremost made to be light and breathable. It is all those things and then some, let’s dive in.

Material

At first it seemed like this fabric might be at least 10% Magic, but Western Rise lists it as: 100% Deltapeak™ Polyester coming in as an 88 gsm mesh double-knit fabric. 88gsm. That’s insanely light, and in practice that’s what makes it feel like magic because it isn’t see-through or paper thin, it is amazingly light.

In addition to weighing nothing, the material itself has a very soft hand feel, and makes no noise at all. I am a huge fan of this fabric.

Fit & Style?

This is an active shirt, so style is dead on with active, I guess. The shirt has an athletic fit, and my standard size large fit me nicely.

The bottom of the shirt has rounded corners, and gives it a bit of a unique look, instead of just a straight across hem common in many active shirts. Overall, a good solid athletic style for an athletic shirt.

Performance

So, let me be clear about how I have been testing this: I’ve been wearing this while rucking with my super abrasive GORUCK Rucker, and doing that in the August heat of Houston, which has consistently been about 90°F, and add about another 10°F to that for the “feels like” with the humidity. In other words: I have been testing in this in hot and humid weather, and been sweating in it a lot, while also grinding the material against 1000D Cordura.

Most of the shirts I test like this, fail quickly.

That has not been the case here. So let me bullet this out:

  • Breathability: I own no other shirt as breathable and as comfortable as this shirt is to wear when I work out. Every other shirt I have causes me to build up sweat faster than this shirt under nearly identical situations. This shirt excels for this.
  • Moisture Control: it does get wet, yes, but it dries insanely fast. I have not yet had to toss this in the drier, because you pull it out of the washer and it is nearly ready to wear, hang it, and it’s dry faster than the next time I come to check on it. Even with sweat, it is almost like the shirt hates being wet, and starts drying as soon as you give it a chance to.
  • Odor Resistance: look, given the amount of sweat I have put in this shirt, I have yet to smell any odor, but I have also not been trying to wear it multiple times. There’s little to no need — it dries too fast after washing to not wash it. But I do think it resists odors well, as many of my other active shirts will have smells even after one hard workout in them — this shirt never smelled.
  • Durability: as I mentioned, GORUCK bags on workout shirts can be a death sentence of pilling for shirts. Not so with this one. It shows zero signs of wear. I am shocked.

As I implied at the start of this review, this shirt performs very well.

Overall

I love this shirt, and while $68 might seem steep for an active wear t-shirt, I can assure you it is worth every penny. I’d like to own more, and hope that they expand the color range. I have the Ash color and love it, I’d love more colors — but truthfully you only need one of these, even if you work out daily. Ok, two would make life a touch easier.

So I guess I am saying you should buy two of these.

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Western Rise Session Tee