Western Rise Outbound Camp Collar Shirt Review
A techy button up - that shines in hotter weather.
Western Rise Outbound Camp Collar Shirt Review Introduction
Western Rise has quite a few travel shirts under their belts at this point. But, since they discontinued their lightweight button up a few years ago, I’ve felt like they were missing a little something in the hot weather shirt category. There is the short sleeve Limitless merino shirt, which honestly is a great shirt on its own (Limitless short sleeve review) - but in hotter weather and walking around you might get a bit warm.
So, here comes the Outbound shirt. A button up, camp collar shirt that can almost do it all in warm weather locations while (much like the Limitless) allowing you to not look like you’re on a hike or fishing while you do it. It’s also a very on-trend style for 2024 being a camp collar.
This is my review of the Western Rise Outbound camp collar shirt. A breathable, lightweight and technical fabric option from the well known travel-focused brand.
In case there are no sales when you read this, get all the way through the review to find a discount code at the end.
As always for full transparency, I did ask Western Rise to send me a piece for review and they were kind enough to say yes. That said, they had no input into the review itself or my comments on the shirt that you see here. This is not sponsored. I do use affiliate links which help to support the site if you decide to use them to make a purchase, but you’re under no obligation to do so and there’s no additional cost to you. Thanks for stopping by!
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Outbound Camp Collar Shirt Overview
Fabric macro. How artistic.
Like most of Western Rise’s other shirts in the lineup, their idea here is to be able to travel lighter and pack less, but still look good doing it. Historically, they’ve been a master of travel friendly fabrics and they aren’t looking to break that mold with the Outbound camp collar shirt.
This shirt has all the typical qualities you're going to want in a travel shirt, and also what you’d expect from a company like Western Rise. It’s got stretchy and breathable fabric that wicks moisture like many modern fabrics. It resists wrinkles and odor. It doesn’t LOOK completely like a technical shirt. And it packs easily for a button up. Specifically, this fabric is known as AC fabric and it gets many of its properties from its perforated construction. Here’s the full list from the site:
84% polyester, 16% Spandex
160 gms
Perforated construction
4-way stretch
Breathable
Lightweight
Moisture wicking
Odor resistant
Quick dry
Designed to help you go from the mountains to the city to the resort (my addition) while looking respectable at the same time. And no one else has to know - but you’ll be comfortable too thanks to the fabric on this shirt.
Your options are three colorways - but note they all have some sort of pattern on them. More on that later. I had the “elm” color but it also comes in black and pacific which is a pleasing blue color.
It retails for $98.00 USD list price.
Outbound Camp Collar Shirt Fit
As usual here I’ll have to look at this from the lens of the short folk as I’m 5’6”. So to get this one out of the way right off the bat - you may need some modifications if that’s you. If you lean more average height (US average) or taller, then this should fit you pretty well right off the rack. Like a lot of modern online shirts, I’d say it’s built more for the slimmer, longer torso and the biggest issues I have is always in the length.
So up front - I altered it. I took the bottom hem up a full cuff (I’d say about an inch. Nothing crazy). Then, we also cuffed the sleeves a single fold and steamed it which kind of helps to make it more permanent (be careful steaming this fabric overall, you’re not really meant to which is why this worked on the cuffs - you might melt it). To be honest, I think it added a bit more style anyway and it looks better like this. Due to the way the sleeve seams were constructed we couldn’t really alter them in the normal way because they are bonded/pressed together. You can’t “pick” that which is how you undo a traditional seam. No matter - I think that cuff looks great and prefer it that way.
In terms of the cut of the shirt otherwise - love the fit here. I had no problem wearing this with either pants or shorts (Evolutions, being up front) and was comfortable wearing either of these combos out and about or to casual restaurants. I’m a stickler for what I wear to restaurants, so if this gets the thumbs up for me on casual, then it’s a good thing. I would not wear this particular shirt to high end dining, but I frankly don’t think it’s targeting that scene and that’s totally OK.
Overall on the look, I found this shirt to be wicked versatile. Whether I was in NYC, DC, or Houston in my main testing, I never felt out of place when I chose to wear it. I liked the fit a lot. I’ll also note that I’ve been wearing it to work a lot this summer as well. I work in an NYC office building, but it’s more tech casual than business casual. So, it fits right in and is still a collared shirt that looks put together. Not to mention testing it in the humid ovens that are the current NYC subways right now.
The Performance
With this shirt when I say “performance” we’re mainly going to be discussing odor resistance and wrinkle resistance.
Did well with each. I did pack this shirt multiple times, though it’s so comfy I found myself wearing it on travel days a lot and on the plane. That said, taking reasonable care packing it into a cube with other shirts for a normal length of time (4-5 hours flights) it was never too wrinkly and did really well there. It will pick up fold lines depending on how long you keep it compressed in a bag, but that’s ANY shirt. And cotton won’t hold a candle to this.
Odor wise, this shirt did remarkably well. In this case they are using XT2, which is a silver weave technology. What I like about that is this means it doesn’t wash out. Ever. I wore this shirt for multiple nights out when traveling (which is a normal use case - I don’t often wear these things 24hrs a day, that’s silly). It was just dinner however, as my party days are behind me. So, 3 hours or so. I wore this for a full day at the office, and multiple days after while working from home before I felt I needed to wash it. Even then, it never really got too smelly which is great.
So for the use case of wearing it around for a day or traveling in it en route, then also still being able to use it for multiple nights out, I think this passes with flying colors. Like anything, your deodorant and how hard you push your body (and therefore this fabric) will be a factor. As will your personal chemistry, so keep that in mind as only you know you.
The Good
As usual the design and fabric are great on this shirt. It’s a nice casual shirt that is frankly extremely versatile. You can wear this in honestly most scenarios besides the high end and fancy stuff. Even then, no one is going to say anything - that just wouldn’t be my personal choice. Warm weather trips for dinners or bars out, around town when you want to look a little nicer than a t-shirt, pretty much anywhere on a resort, South East Asia comes to mind, museums in the summer, etc. It’s also a great shirt for hiding your super casual self when you’re in luxury hotels and you want to fit in at breakfast. It keeps the Old Money from staring you down while you eat that benedict, baby. Show them you belong, too! So, versatility is a real strong suit of this shirt.
I also want to call out both the hand feel and the next-to-skin feel on this shirt. I loved it. It’s really really comfortable in general but also in hot and sticky weather, and I think that last part surprised me a little. Simply because it’s not an ULTRALIGHT fabric or anything. It’s lightweight, don’t get me wrong. But not like linen. And frankly it was just a joy to wear in both the gross DC humidity and commuting in the NYC subway which is just awful.
Odor performance and wrinkle resistance when packed was great. This is the hallmark of a great travel shirt, and it did its job here.
I loved the COLOR option. The green and blue in particular are really nice, and I got multiple compliments on the green. One from the head of FnB at the Dupont Circle Hotel as well, so there you go. I emphasize “color” as I have a bit of a part 2 on that for the next section!
I like that they kept this under $100.00. All too often I’m seeing $130, $150 these days. Good work WR for keeping this within reason. This replaces MULTIPLE shirts. Tech fabrics and small scale, ethical production are not cheap. Folks need to come to grips with that fact. That doesn’t mean it has to be your choice, but we need to stop speaking in lunatic statements like, “I can get the same thing from Target for $30.00.” You can’t.
The Bad
As usual on the WR shirts I test, I do think the measurements could be adjusted a bit more to lean away from the taller or lengthy torso. I’d like to see a bit of a shift back in the other direction - at least on the size S. Altering isn’t the end of the world, but I’d like for my shorter brethren to not have to do that by default. The sleeves also can’t be altered, so remember that. At least, not easily or in a way that they’ll look proper.
The one thing that might get mixed results on these shirts is the pattern. I think it would suit more people overall if they offered both the patterns and the solid versions. Colors are fantastic, but the patterns might turn some folks off. The Green and Blue versions have a checkered, almost ripstop look (it’s not ripstop, don’t worry). And the black has a liquidy pattern on it (actually if I had to guess I’d say it’s more of a topo map). Maybe update that to a paisley? Just spitballing. But I think having both would get more folks comfortable with them. I do think having non-pattern versions would also help the shirts to fit into more upscale situations a little better. But, this is in the eye of the beholder like many things and it all depends on what you’re going for.
Final Thoughts On My Western Rise Outbound Shirt Review
So could the Western Rise Outbound shirt be your warm weather go-to for travel or around your town? Yeah I really think it could. Go ahead and rock it to that BBQ with your friends, too.
I really, really enjoyed wearing it and the comfort level was great. I just found it “easy”, if that makes sense. And at the end of the day, I think that’s what most folks want. They want to look good - yes - but they don’t want it to be a huge pain in the ass to do it. This works for that. It’s basically my Shirt of the Summer - if that award existed.
I also like what companies like WR are doing in the sense of making technical and travel friendly clothes that don’t make you look like a dufus when you’re wandering. I mean it’s a thing - there’s a reason that joke and that stereotype exists. Especially for Americans abroad. You really don’t need to do that anymore, unless you’re more of a bargain hunter. Yes you’ll find synthetics for much cheaper, and button up shirts as well, but they won’t often look that great or modern and more so lean in the direction like you just got finished lion taming or safari’ing. For the utilitarians amongst us that are function over fashion, tip of the cap to you this won’t be a problem for you.
But for me? I can’t do it. I want to look nice when I travel but also have that utility. I found pretty much all of that with the Outbound camp collar shirt and it’s been on every trip with me since my first test. Be sure to check it out for yourself if you’re looking to invest in some travel friendly tech clothing to take on your next trip - or simply your next sweaty summer commute.
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Wander more - and wander smarter everyone.
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