Rewilding clothing: wet and cold weather gear

When you want to stay warm and dry in the outdoors, you quickly realize that clothing layering is a skill. And it doesn’t matter how many layers you wear if you start with a cold, clammy base layer of cotton fabric. But my lifelong disdain of synthetic fabrics has left me feeling clammy and damp far too many times.

So how do we stay comfortable in the cold and the rain without resorting to polyester and nylon? I LOVE wool as a mid layer (or even as an over-layer if it isn’t too rainy), but wool doesn’t seem like a comfortable choice for a base layer. What are some other options? And how did our pre-polyester-era ancestors layer things?

I am currently fantasizing about a making a rabbit-skin vest to be worn as a base layer, fur-side in.

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Ooh fur-in rabbit would be nice. Brain-tanned buckskin is generally a lovely soft inner wear fiber. Just keep it dry or you’re screwed!

How well does a buckskin under-layer work if you work up a sweat on a cold day?

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