Editor’s Note:
For this review of Patagonia WorkWear’s new hemp pants, we turned to outdoors woman, Natalie Lord.
Lord is a Maine gal and St. Lawrence University graduate who spends nearly every weekend outside or in the backcountry. Now living in the Pacific Northwest, she’s a talented skier and surfer.
Photos by Soulfolle Creative.
Lord writes:
My first experience wearing Patagonia’s Iron Forge Hemp™ Canvas Double Knee Pants was at a beach clean up for the Make a Difference Day at my local Washington State Department of Natural Resources Aquatic Reserve, Cherry Point.
The pants are perfect for activities like beach clean-ups because I can deal with the rugged marine debris objects and the shore side blackberry bushes without worrying about tearing a hole in them. It was a perfect early winter day and I had the optimum temperature control throughout the project.
One of my favorite features of the pants is their pockets. I frequently find women’s pants to have shallow pockets with no room to hold any significant object. The pockets are distributed in all the right places. When I reached for a safe place to hold a small marine debris item for data collection, there was a pocket right there available to hold it.
Different pocket sizes accommodate various objects in need of temporary homes, such as my camera to take photos of my volunteers at work. While walking along the cobble stone beach and climbing the shoreline rip rap, the pants were flexible throughout it all.
The canvas has just the right amount of breathability, while still being wind proof and tear proof. I have found in the past that pants of this working caliber do not have comfortable material and even leave my skin irritated from the abrasion of the coarse fabric.
But these pants come feeling already broken in and they’re softer than all other work pants I’ve previously owned. I knew as soon as I held these pants in my hands these would be comfortable and resilient through all of the hardships I’d put them through.
On top of the tangible feel good effect, they’re made with the critical health of the environment in mind:
- The industrial hemp is grown without pesticides
- The polyester is recycled.
- The cotton is organic.
One can feel good about buying something they’ll have for a long time, all while keeping the consumer footprint of a new purchase as low as possible.