Nearly Two Decades Later, Outlier Is Still Changing the Face of Menswear

If the fashion world is akin to scoping out the weather radar or a 10-day forecast, then Outlier has long been ahead of the game. The New York City company, founded in 2008, looks at one’s wardrobe as a response to a changing world. In matters of both climate and style trends.

Using a compelling mix of futuristic fabrics and silhouettes that also take on a retro-futurist vibe, there’s not a company quite like Outlier on the market. 

Outlier does just a bit of everything—from bomber jackets to ultra-soft brushed flannel shirts, durable pants, breezy track jackets, and moisture-wicking merino tees.

It’s a combination of gear you can wear out on the trail or on the cobblestone streets of lower Manhattan without missing a beat.

Outlier has never strayed far from its original mission of groundbreaking performance clothing, said co-founder Abe Burmeister. 

Burmeister, who co-founded the brand with Tyler Clemens and now serves as its creative director, looks at Outlier as solution- and style-based, all tailored to adapt to hotter temperatures and unpredictable weather at large. 

In its first few years, Burmeister noted the company wanted to shift away from being a bike commuter-focused brand, adding it “felt like a pigeonhole or trap.” It has been a successfully subtle shift, as its co-founder notes, “We still approach design almost the same as we did when we started.”

“Fashion, on the other hand, has changed tremendously,” Burmeister told CoolMaterial. “That’s almost the definition of fashion.”

Naturally, Outlier is acutely aware of the ways in which the diaspora has shifted in the roughly 18 years since the company’s debut. While wider, looser cuts are the norm, the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction, and Burmeister notes that Outlier will be ready for another shift. 

“It’s a wobbly pendulum, though. It tends to swing back more in a spiral than a parabola,” he mused. “You can sense the direction but the final destination takes a while to become clear.”

One thing that’s infinitely clear when diving into the Outlier story is a sense of preparation, a plan for the future that incorporates both form and function.

Take the brand’s Injected Linen material, for instance. It’s an uncommon fabric that rests at the core of the Outlier mission. (There’s also an Experiments section of their site dedicated to new fabrics, styles, and materials).

“Our job is less about developing new things and more about figuring out how emerging developments can be best used to create better products,” Burmeister said. “It’s a complex process we think about as ‘listening to the raw materials.’ It’s about understanding the deep mechanics of new developments and experimenting with different approaches to figure out how to let them express their full potential.”

So, it begs the question: Is Outlier more a fashion brand or a company dabbling in sustainable experiments?

Yes. And yes.

Outlier clothing has a distinctive drape and a sharp sense of style. Even the seemingly simple, like a hooded sweatshirt or a flannel shirt, blends the high-tech with a day-to-day sense of effortless cool. 

“We really see ourselves more as doing fabric arbitrage than fabric development. It takes years or decades for new fabric technologies to reach consumer-grade,” Burmeister said, noting that scale, durability, and utility all require their own solutions. 

Developing clothing for a rapidly changing climate, one that often shifts at a frightening pace, is a critical part of the Outlier mission, as “climate volatility” leads to “wild spikes.” Flash floods, high temperatures meeting peak humidity, and so on, Burmeister noted. 

“You can prepare for isolated scenarios, but the best preparedness is just to be versatile, and versatility is at the core of our clothing,” Burmeister says. 

Part of the challenge for Outlier lies in reinventing the wheel in the menswear world, so to speak, but a range of distinctive silhouettes speak to the idea that Outlier is still ahead of its time. 

Burmeister notes that he’s personally been sporting the company’s Air/jex Openseas design as of late.

“There is very little structural innovation left to do with clothes. The shapes of cloth that work with the human body are pretty limited and well explored,” he said. “But there still is some degree of innovation still happening in creating new closures for garments, and there is always some degree of plasticity in what shapes are socially acceptable in different conditions.”

And for those who favor a more classic or simple approach, Burmeister recommends Outlier’s merino T-shirts or the Outlier Geojak. 

There’s not quite a surefire road map for the fashion industry at large, nor the climate itself going forward, but Outlier is as nimble and light on its feet as ever, nearly two decades on. 

Consider updating your wardrobe accordingly with gear and garb from one of the most forward-thinking fashion companies on the planet.