Arc’teryx Veilance makes performance (mens)wear, equally as influenced by Arc’teryx’s outdoor experience as by modern, minimalist interpretations of classic menswear.
Spring/summer 2021, they added the Haedn LT capsule that interprets these aspects into wool material.
With the Haedn blazer, Veilance went for a look much more like standard, good, menswear.
The Origins of the Haedn Line
The original Haedn blazer already had Veilance going into an interesting direction. Its material, basically a felted wool, is both a classic and high performance.
Its cut is very classic, but reduced to a clear, minimalist, silhouette. At the same time, there are some unconventional details.
Later came a Haedn jacket. A Haedn overshirt.
Spring/Summer 2021 saw a different take, in the Haedn LT capsule.
Veilance Haedn LT
Where the earlier Haedn pieces from Veilance were all for the cold season, with thicker wool-blend textiles, the Haedn LT pieces strike out on a different path.
They still belong in this line in their use of wool and in the classical look of the material. Heathered gray or dark navy; nothing eye-catching (or potentially problematic) in that!
The LT capsule is expanded to offer a full suiting option, though: There is not only a blazer, there are also a (short-sleeve) shirt and pants.
LT: Light, for the Heat
The labeling as LT, i.e. light, is taken very seriously, too: The wool material here is not felted, not brushed, but rather as thin as any merino material can possibly get.
It’s 18.5 micron yarn, 145 grams per square meter… I have canvas paper that’s twice as heavy!
Textile Feel
The feel of the durable water repellent-treated “lightweight performance wool” is soft, supple, and strong all at once.
The fiber density, I assume, makes this textile feel very trustworthy in terms of durability and protection it provides, even as the merino wool should be nicely breathable. It certainly is comfortable on the skin.
Merino plus the light weight of it all mean that these are garments that drape nicely, do not wrinkle, and feel like they are hardly even there.
Performance in Heat?
We will have to see how things go with the water repellency in a summer drizzle (let alone, after some washings) and with breathability and comfort in hot and humid summer conditions.
The dry run, trying it all on in a heated room in winter, has been very nice.
By now, I have also worn the Haedn LT “suit” in summer, and it performed nicely cool as expected.
I did not get into any summer rain in it, but then you should dress for the conditions you can expect. Getting into rain having only clothes like these on, that would be odd.
Look and Style
When it comes to look and style rather than textile feel and characteristics, the Haedn LT capsule is very interesting, too.
The heather gray (or dark navy) are very classical suiting tones. The cuts are close to timeless classic.
The style is a Veilance-typical severe minimalism.
No buttons are visible anywhere on the outside. The pockets are hardly visible. All lines are clear and clean.
Veilance Haedn LT Pant
The pant is perhaps the most noticeable in its cut, and that cut is hardly eye-catching.
It’s just the angled pockets with protective flaps in the back that are potentially noticeable as something unusual.
The front pockets are side-opening in a rather usual way for such pants, and almost disappear into the seam on the side.
The seam patterning of the pants would not be easy to determine for any onlooker, but it is a Veilance-typical unusual pattern.
The crotch is gusseted, The seams are angular, with pre-articulated knees. All “articulated patterning for unrestricted mobility,” as the product features describe it.
(No surprise: The seams are taped.)
Veilance Haedn LT SS Shirt
The SS (short sleeve) shirt actually has a pocket.
On the left side of the chest, with an angled hidden zipper, with one of the unusual Veilance-branded pulls… but you have to be the person wearing the shirt or equally as close to be able to recognize the branding on the pull.
The entire zipper is tone-in-tone with the overall color to the point of near-invisibility.
This is worth a mention because the lines of the shirt are the usual severe, with even the small snap buttons closing it hidden behind a placket.
There are notes of ergonomic patterning, and the cut does offer quite enough mobility.
Short sleeves make this less of an issue, and a dress shirt-like pattern isn’t exactly made for climbing, in any case.
Sizing-wise, I want to mention that I went down to S for the shirt. I tried M and S, and they fit rather similarly. To me, the main – and determining – difference is that the S is slimmer around the waist.
Veilance Haedn LT Blazer
The Haedn LT blazer is, like the (“normal”) Blazer LT line, a curious piece.
Of course, it is made from the same merino “performance wool” with DWR-treatment as pant and shirt. The DWR treatment makes rather more sense on such an outerwear piece.
The material feels even lighter than the Terratex used for the Blazer LT line.
Its extreme lightness makes this another blazer that is very much about the possibility of keeping up a suit-like look in weather conditions where no ordinary suit or blazer would be light enough.
Being made for heat, the Haedn Blazer LT is not made to be worn with the collar up and the lapels closed; it does not have the fastening for the collar that the fall/winter Haedn or Indisce blazers offer.
Interestingly, the wool is strong enough for this look to work relatively well, should you have an overbearing liking for it (like I do).
Even on this blazer, there are the usual two outside hand pockets vertically integrated with the seam, as well as the inside zippered pockets. Passport-size on the left; casing wallet-size on the right.
Mobility
Mobility in blazer (and shirt) is high, and it is even better in the pants.
Like any blazer, anything like suiting (with one exception), these pieces are not made for yoga or martial arts, of course, so don’t go climbing in them and expect to look sharp all the while.
Reach up, and shirt and/or blazer will ride up above your shoulders.
Color and Combinations
The better question will be to what extent any of these Haedn LT pieces work well in what combination.
The full Haedn LT outfit looks rather elegant, with quite the minimalist severity to it.
The pant should work well enough with any kind of shirt, even if it is very much like a suit pant.
The shirt should similarly combine with most pants. By itself, it has little of a normal dress shirt-like look, anyways.
The blazer may be less easy to mix-and-match than the Blazer LT, especially in their lighter summer colors.
Blazers always need their own particular consideration regarding combinations that do or don’t work well, though.
Above all, you simply need to be the kind of man who wears a blazer with personality. Or you aren’t that type.
Currently (2021-22), the pieces of this capsule are still available from Veilance:
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