Down the hall is a showroom displaying the inaugural season of clothes by Palmers new brand, Hill City , the only line from Gap Inc. exclusively for men. Depending on your perspective, Hill City makes either performance wear that looks like streetwear or streetwear that functions like performance wear. The colors tend to be muted and masculine: royal blues, mossy greens, sandy browns. The functionality is often hidden: a secret zipper pocket, a ventilation flap, moisture-control fabrication to get sweat and rainwater the hell away from your body.
Hill City is hardly the first mens-wear brand to feature performance components. Mack Weldon makes unbunchy underwear. Lululemon designs jogger pants and compression tights for dudes. What makes Hill City different is that its leading us into a (welcome) post-athleisure moment, when men expect at least some level of performance in all their clothes (even the ones theyd never wear to the gym). In Hill Citys world, a mans everyday shirts, pants, and jackets need to flex, wick, and breathe-and look like theyre not even trying.
Theres a lot of really cool stuff happening in performance wear from a technical standpoint, Palmer says, surveying his market competition. But we dont think it looks very good. Its not very cool. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, theres a lot of cool stuff happening in the lifestyle space that doesnt have any performance. Our wish was bridging those two ends of the spectrum.
Think of it as Carhartt with a gym membership.
He turns to inspect a pair of pants hanging on the wall: The Everyday Pant, its called. A khaki. Think of it as Carhartt with a gym membership.
He handles the material. The waistband has some stretch. The legs have some stretch. But youd never look at a guy wearing the Everyday Pant and think, Hey, bro, how was yoga?
He moves on to a water-resistant, snap-front jacket. This is what we call a Thermal Light Shirt Jacket, he says. Im wearing it right now. (Palmer is dressed head-to-ankle in his brands clothes. Hill City doesnt make shoes, so hes wearing low-top canvas Vans.) The deal with the Thermal Light Shirt Jacket is that its astoundingly lightweight and also toasty warm, thanks to high-value PrimaLoft insulation, and yet despite all the technology, it looks restrained and minimalist.
So does everything on the showroom floor. Hill City doesnt do gaudy logos or heavy prints. We dont add details, Palmer says. We strip them away.
Hes in a groove now, geeking out over his debut collection. Theres a pair of shorts with an anti-odor liner. A pair of socks with perforation to promote airflow. A super-heavyweight heather-gray hoodie made from organic 400-gram cotton-most sweatshirts, he says, are around 200, 250, maybe 300 grams max. But we wanted something really heavyweight and dense. Inside the hoodies kangaroo pocket is a mesh pouch for your phone.
This spring, the line will expand to include swimwear and more gear made explicitly for training. But the soul of the brand is in street clothes that work like gym clothes, the sort of gear you want to be wearing not when youre running on the treadmill but rather running to catch a flight.
I hate the word athleisure, Palmer says. Its not a way we would ever categorize Hill City. But if I think about what athleisure means-to me, its code for stuff thats more comfortable. Once you have a product-say, a pair of pants-thats more comfortable than what you were used to before, theres no going back. From the bikers and joggers outside Palmers office window, we move forward.