Lowe Alpine Dryflo Zone Top First Look

Lowe AlpineDryflo Zone Top First Look

Price: £35.00 (also available as T @ £30)

Weight: 140 grammes (men's L)

Features: Shortsleeved, deep zip-neck, Dryflo ZoneTech fabric, low profile collar for easy layering, differential hem (slight drop tail), enhanced moisture vapour areas corresponding to body 'hot spots' and seamlessly integrated with main body of fabric.

Dryflo's pretty much our favourite baselayer fabric and has been for a while now. It's smooth, comfortable to wear and wicks well, but with the competition hotting up from the likes of Polartec's neat Powerdry fabric - now widely used by companies like TNF and Karrimor - Lowe has upped the ante with a top which incorporates two different Dryflo weaves.

The idea is that hot spots - identified by thermal imaging - are covered with a different material which, in marketing speak, offers 'enhanced moisture vapour transfer'. In other words, it's supposed to keep you cooler and wick better. What that means, with the men's version tested here, is that the front of the chest area, armpits, the sides of the trunk and most of the back are made from a visbly looser woven fabric, with a different, snazzier pattern.

There's no seam between the two different fabrics and they're the same colour, so the effect is quite subtle visually, which is a shame, cos it means we haven't been able to photograph it, though we'll scan in a pic from the Lowe workbook that makes things clearer when we've got time...

The women's version, incidentally, has different hot spots, with the high-wicking part being concentrated from the chest down under two vaguely breast-shaped cut-outs, but then of course the girls glow rather than perspiring.

Does it work? The brutally honest answer is so far we can't really tell. We've used it for running, mountain biking and in the gym and while it's every bit as good as standard lightweight Dryflo, it's hard to tell whether it's worth the premium. A Zone Tee retails at 30 quid, a lightweight version is a tenner less.

We suspect that it might come into its own in hotter summer conditions where the marginally increased ventilation and looser weave may help, though you could just as well make a whole tee-shirt from the enhanced, higher wicking fabric.

So, real benefits or just another weapon in the outdoors innovation marketing wars? The jury is still out, but what we can tell you is Zones or no Zones, Dryflo is still an excellent, high-wicking, well designed baselayer.

Verdict so far: Is it useful or is it just hype? It's hard to say right now. Certainly the top works well as a conventional Dryflo baselayer, but we honestly can't tell whether those high wicking zone bits do owt more than the rest of the garment. If it does work, we'd expect to see it in hotter summer conditions when moving fast - you're just going to have to wait for those I'm afraid. Watch this space.

Lowe Alpine web site

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