Vollebak Planet Earth Shirt Review – One Dirty Weekend in One Clean Shirt
In this review I paid for this item and I do not get a commission for sales from the link in the blog. I never endorse products I don’t use as my credibility is more important. Thankyou for helping to support my blog and adventures so I can keep buying gear to review.
Lee-Stuart Evans finishing the Ox50 Ultra in a Vollebak Earth Shirt
The Planet Earth Shirt by Vollebak makes some ballsy claims on its website, and it needs to with a £245 price tag. When I read the blurb I was determined to set out to try and destroy the Vollebak Planet Earth Shirt White Edition and see if you really could wear this shirt to work, down the pub and in some of the toughest environments outdoors…all in the same weekend.
When Steve Tidball the co founder of Vollebak set me the challenge of running an Ultra Marathon in it he was ballsy enough to send the shirt in white which made me chuckle. The two Tidball brothers initial thought experiment for this shirt was bold….. ‘You’ve been thrown in the back of a truck, you don’t know where on Earth you’re going to end up, or what your mission is when you get there, whats’s the piece of kit you want to be wearing to help keep you alive?’
I was hell bent on making it a permanent light brown colour by the end of the weekend. I’m notorious for destroying outdoor gear in record time, setting a new ‘under 10 mins’ record this year with running spikes in the arctic. This was going to be a simple case of ‘hold my beer and watch me wreck things’ .
Vollebak Earth Shirt
I set out for a camping and running weekend planning to wear the shirt to work on the Friday at work and whilst running all weekend and finish the weekend in the pub with friends on the Sunday. If this shirt is for all environments then I will want to wear it for work, play and sport.
At first glance when it arrived its a nice white shirt.
Thats it.
Its smart, well tailored and looks good. Its only when you delve closer you start to notice the small details that combine to make this shirt something rather nifty.
Vollebak Earth Shirt water repellency
The fabric is from high tec Swiss manufacturer Schoeller. They were the boffins that made the ceramic coated fabric Vollebak use in their indestructible condition black range. The fabric used for the shirt looks like fine linen, but is actually a synthetic and cotton blend that has a slight stretch to it for comfort of movement. Its also treated with a 3XDRY coating that helps wick moisture away from the body when sweating whilst still being water repellent on the outside. In testing I washed this shirt twice in normal detergent at 40C and the water repellency still remains. Its breathable, light and very comfortable. Although the shirt looks…like a shirt…it ‘feels’ like a technical running top.
I turned up to a White Star Trail Running Festival wearing the shirt with the plan to run a total of 80 miles over 4 races in the shirt. Normally I wear a wicking top to run in and a ‘race vest’ with bottle holders, pockets etc for all the gels and gear I need for a days running. I ALWAYS wear black to hide the dirt. I used the front pockets for my phone and a small flexible water bottle , and the pocket on the arm for gels and snacks. I also used the nifty hanging loops and loop on the underside of the left breast pocket to mount my folding trekking poles when not using them ( there was 5000ft of ascent on the race !)
Vollebak Earth Shirt
The longest run was a 50 mile Ultra through the Wiltshire Countryside on the Saturday. An early morning start meant a cold start and I had the sleeves down and collar up to keep me warm. As the day warmed up I rolled back the sleeves on the shirt to keep cooler and as the breeze and heat picked up in the fierce sun of the afternoon I opened the front zipped mesh ‘vents’ that act like natural air con through the shirt. The back of the shirt has a discreet folded mesh vent down it to vent heat away from your body and the wind blowing through the shirt with the front vents open made it nice and cool. The white reflected the heat and better still with no race vest on for all my gear my back was much cooler and less sweaty than normal. The shirt also has other hidden mesh vents in it around the armpits to help cool and wick away sweat. Keeping the collar up during the day kept the sun off my neck too.
Vollebak Earth Shirt mesh cool venting zips
There is a secret zip pocket hidden around the right hand chest pocket. I used this to keep my car key safe.
Vollebak Planet Earth Shirt at the Ox 50 Ultra – White Star Running
There are some nice fine details with the shirt too. The stitching is super reinforced with matt black bartacks at stress points and the buttons are made from super tough natural Corozo Nuts. At the turn of the century a large portion of buttons were made from this natural nut but cheaper plastics replaced it. The nut is very hard wearing and has a beautiful patina to it up close. With the current public movement towards banning unnecessary plastics its good to see this in buttons as well.
The buttons are actually threaded onto a large strip of military tape, this means they can stretch and move with the shirt so it doesn’t create stress points. This shirt comes with a neat pleat over the top to hide the buttons, which I find slightly fiddly to do up one by one and as a result and it hides the buttons when the shirt is done up which is a shame given the thought that went behind them.
Corozo Nut Buttons on the Vollebak Earth Shirt
I also ran the Ultra in the Vollebak Ocean shorts (they also claimed to be so comfortable you could run an Ultra in them!) I will do a separate review for them soon once I’ve SCUBA dived in them too.
My initial plan was to review the shirt for the 50 mile ultra then revert back to my usual top and race vest for the 2 races on the Sunday. When I woke up the day after the Ultra I put the shirt back on. I preferred it to the race vest and top I usually wear. This shirt won me over in 12 hours.
Vollebak Earth Shirt
A lot of runners at the start of the weekend thought it was hilarious I was running in a white shirt, and it became a talking point as I explained what I was doing. As the weekend wore on the initial surprise at wearing a shirt changed to sheer surprise that the shirt still looked white and showed no signs of dirt. The 3XDry coating seems to even repel dust and the shirt looked as pristine in the pub Sunday evening as it did in the office on the Friday before. It also didn’t stink at all.
A decent Armani fitted shirt in white will set you back £130 online, Add the cost of a technical running wicking top, a race vest with pockets to carry your stuff and maybe a shower proof light jacket to keep light rain showers off and you’ve spent over £300. Whilst some people might balk at spending £245 on a white shirt if you look at the amount of use I got (and will get) out of it I think its well worth its price. In a world of everything looking the same I like the bonkers initial thought experiment, the attention to detail and the break from the norm.
Vollebak put their money where their mouth is on these limited edition shirts. They are made in small batches at a very exclusive factory in Portugal ( there is a story that the factory basically ignored Vollebak for a year to see if they were serious) and sell out very quickly due to the first look that email subscribers get pre launch.
The shirt comes in 4 different colours , Black , Green, Grey and White.
vollebak ocean shorts review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0cg0xRkhB4&t=2s It all started with a discussion about ball comfort at Vollebak HQ. Any guy…
2 thoughts on “Vollebak Planet Earth Shirt Review – One Dirty Weekend in One Clean Shirt”
2 thoughts on “Vollebak Planet Earth Shirt Review – One Dirty Weekend in One Clean Shirt”