Baffin Base Layers
January 4, 2012
Baffin is branching into the apparel category and sent me some women’s base layers to try, tops and bottoms. I wore them today and have a few thoughts.
This isn't me.
Top – the top is great. It fits perfectly in my regular size and has cool superhero type styling; stars on the shoulders, racing stripes. I don’t know why there needs to be a bustier-style accent panel in the front, but whatever. I like it and it contributes to the Wonder Woman-inspired styling. It’s a wool piece and that means it’s a little itchy, so in the future I’d wear it over another base layer (lots of double base layer days in Alaska so no big deal). One thing I really love about the styling is the crew neck – I wish all base layers had this. I’m usually wearing one or all of the following: avalanche transceiver, backpack, radio harness. With all that stuff on a small torso, straps are bound to get pushed around and rub the side of my neck. Crewneck base layers solve that problem. I wish, as usual, that this piece had a 1/4 zip, but I guess not every single shirt can have one. You tall folks will like the fact that the arms are really long.
Bottoms – good fabric and good construction are foiled by terrible fit. I don’t understand the fit of these at all. They sent a M, which is a size up for me, and it seemed to fit in the legs OK but from crotch up it was a total junk show. The rise came up over my rib cage in the front, and dipped down in the back by at least three inches (which didn’t show crack, because the front rise was SO high). The long rise meant that I was busting a little sag at the crotch and feeling uncomfortable with a seam up so high on my torso. Sadly, I wouldn’t be able to wear these pants for anything really active like skiing or climbing; the fit would annoy me too much. As I point out here, high rise base layers are also really hard to manage when you have to pull them down to pee. You have to grope up under your shirt waaaaaay up there just to find the top of the pants to pull them down and then shift all your upper-body clothes all around to get the pants back up. Mostly, though, they’re just uncomfortable because they’re not shaped like I’m shaped. What a bummer; otherwise I’d really like them. The fabric is good and they are cut well in the legs to allow for knee movement, with cool “body mapping” to help ventilate when needed..
If it weren’t for the weird fit these would be my first choice for walking around in just base layers pre- or post-trip. It would be like wearing a Superfriends costume. I wish I had the bottoms in my regular size to see if that would help with the fit, but I suspect it would only help a little since the style is definitively high rise. Once Baffin irons out that issue, they’d have a winner here.
