The fleece jacket now has a prominent place in the wardrobes of city dwellers

Blue, a little too big, with a vintage Quechua logo attached to the zip, my heart fleece is an inheritance from my mother. This relic from the 1990s, I only wear it in the family home or on mountain hikes. Not in the streets of Grenoble, my hometown where sportswear is king, but where I have never dared to wear this type of warm but light jacket in synthetic fabric in public. Fleece is anti-fashion. Well, not quite.

“In my youth, it was cheesy”, sums up the 30-year-old Savoyard Pauline Boulet, journalist specializing in the mountains. She finds that the mountaineering clothes “have come out of their natural environment to be worn, for several years, by young people in Paris”. Farewell domainoutdoors. From Belleville to Montmartre, on the paved slopes of the Parisian hills, the winter aridity of the capital confronts you bundled up in a North Face down jacket, an Arc’teryx beanie, Salomon shoes and a Patagonia fleece.

“Before, I wore fleeces exclusively in the mountains”concedes Rose Capelle, a 34-year-old Breton exiled in Paris, a fan of cycling and converted for a few months to this type of jacket. “The better it goes, the more comfort I prioritize in my life and therefore also in my clothes. It’s soft, comfortable, pleasant, very warm. » And practical, in times of reduced heating for financial or ecological reasons.

The technologies developed by Gore-Tex, Polartec or Climashield are attractive assets for Mathias Léonard, a young sculptor: “These fabrics designed for outdoor use give me an impression of quality. These are high-performance, robust garments compared to the rest of the textile industry and fast fashion. » And not without charm. “I find that these are beautiful cuts, particular silhouettes”, argues the Francilien. These shapes remind him of the idea of ​​nature within reach, when he is so far from the summits: “Extreme natural environments make me dream, these clothes give me access to them through their aesthetics and compensate for the lack of access to nature that we have as an urban dweller. »

For several years, a whole alpine sporting spirit has been infiltrating urban interstices, as evidenced by the enthusiasm for climbing and hiking. Even if it means diverting the codes: “Salomon trail shoes, I normally see them in the mountains when I go running”, sighs the Swiss Marine Almagbaly, student in literature, passing through Paris on the occasion of a university exchange. “It hurts my heart to see these shoes made for rough terrain on concrete. » A form of waste? Like her, the entomologist Elsa Falières, native of Cantal, sees a slight hypocrisy here: “For me, it’s a way of telling others, in a casual and somewhat exaggerated way, that we have a privileged link with nature, when this is very rarely the case. »

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