The perfect union of hot weather and sweat meets its match. Columbia’s new cooling technology makes salty, drenched shirts desireable.
Glowing walls of sandstone tower over and surround Sedona, Arizona. Cults gather here and New Age believers hike the hills in search of spiritual vortexes rumored to exist above the town. It only follows the high-desert outpost is famous for the metaphysical effect it has on people
It was on the outskirts of Sedona this weekend that Columbia Sportswear and its subsidiary brand Mountain Hardwear gathered a group of journalists for an open-air press conference at a ranch.
Cooling Fabric Technology Debut
The occasion was a New Age announcement of sorts, a fabric technology purported to offer “a whole new category of clothing”. Supposedly, sweat-activated cooling properties will “improve the way people live around the world.”
Those quotes belong to Mick McCormick, a VP at Columbia, who stood on stage under the desert stars. He gestured to graphs and images of athletes sweating on a slide. “The world is hot and getting hotter, forget your politics.”
But the night’s news had little to do with climate change. Trail runners and hot weather hikers concerned Columbia and Mountain Hardwear more. For the first time, they teamed up to co-launch a technology used in both brands.
The magic stuff is Omni-Freeze ZERO from Columbia and Cool.Q Zero from Mountain Hardwear. Within the clothing, tiny donut shape accents laminated on polyester “suck, swell, and expel” as an athlete sweats and cools in return.
Omni-Freez ZERO Technology Explained
Next Year Columbia and Mountain Hardwear Hit the Market
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