This article introduces how to layer clothing effectively by utilizing the scientific principles of clothing to beat the cold in winter, and explains the concepts of clothing climate and warmth.
Every winter in Korea, we pull out our padded jumpers, coats, and other heavy coats that have been sitting in the back of our closets for half the year. At this time of year, many people start thinking about winter fashion. We think about what styles are in fashion, what colors will look good on us, and most importantly, will they keep us warm? We wear thick, woolly socks, layers of clothing, and heated underwear, also known by the trade name “heat tech”. It’s very natural to use clothing to combat the cold. This is not surprising, since the first reason for clothing was to protect the body from various natural environments, such as the cold. But is recklessly layering clothing to combat the cold effective? In this article, we’ll explain how clothing works and how you can use it to layer smarter.
Clothing has its own clothing climate, which is separate from the ever-changing external environment. A clothing climate is a microclimate that is created inside a garment by wearing it. The elements of the clothing climate include the temperature, humidity, airflow, pressure, and composition of the air within the garment, and how it is created determines whether we feel comfortable or not. Furthermore, the ability to maintain and regulate this clothing climate in a comfortable state is known as a garment’s climate control. Clothing’s ability to regulate the climate goes beyond simply blocking UV rays or cold, and allows us to create a personalized and comfortable environment, and to easily adjust the climate with or without clothing.
Clothing also has the ability to block heat from the outside. This is called thermal insulation or thermal resistance. The thermal insulation of clothing depends more on the air layers in the clothing that make up the clothing climate mentioned in the previous paragraph than on the physical properties of the clothing itself or the thermal insulation of the clothing material. In general, we want to minimize the space between our clothing and our body in cold weather to prevent cold wind from passing through. However, this is an inefficient behavior in terms of the warmth of the garment. In fact, clothing works most effectively when there”s a moderate amount of slack in the garment, and at the same time, the air layer that”s created by the slack is stationary, meaning that convection doesn”t occur. The thicker the stationary air layer, the greater the insulating power of the garment.
So, how can you dress “smarter” to beat the cold by utilizing the above principles of clothing? Using the above principles of clothing, we can say that in order to combat the cold, it’s best to have some allowance to create a stationary air layer between the garment and the body. To illustrate, imagine wearing a wind jacket with little breathability and a sweater cardigan with a lot of breathability. Wearing the less breathable wind jacket on the outside and the more breathable cardigan on the inside (closer to the body) will increase the warmth of the garment. In other words, layering, but wearing the more breathable fabric on the inside to maximize the thickness of the air layer within the entire garment, is an effective way to increase the warmth of the garment.
There are other things to consider when layering clothing. You need to understand the material and construction of each garment and carefully determine the order in which you layer them. For example, cotton clothing absorbs sweat well, but it dries slowly and can actually rob you of body heat in cold weather. Therefore, you should wear a material that absorbs and evaporates sweat quickly on the inside, followed by a warmer material on top. It’s also important to wear layers to help regulate your body temperature on active days, rather than wearing too many layers.
According to the Korea Meteorological Administration’s annual average climate change indicators, the average temperature in Korea is on the rise. Also, the annual minimum temperature data shows that the minimum temperature in Seoul in winter has not changed much from the 1970s to 2023. Despite these small changes in winter temperatures, it seems like there are more people around these days who are relatively cold, and their attire is often far from flattering, either by simply wearing thick layers of clothing on top of each other, or by wearing layers of clothing indiscriminately to the point of restricting their movements. However, after reading this article, I hope that you will understand the science of clothing and be able to layer smarter. Furthermore, we hope that you will share this knowledge with others so that everyone can stay warm and comfortable during the cold winter months.
