One of the most formidable villains of my childhood was Parent Trap baddie Meredith Blake. When Meredith joins our more down-to-earth California heroes (played by Lindsay Lohan and Lindsay Lohan, respectively) on a third-act camping trip, she dons a spandex outfit with a little zip-up sports bra, matching leggings, and a comically large Evian water bottle.

Meredith, we鈥檙e made to believe, looks stupid! Her outfit shows she is all wrong for Nick Parker. In the end, our girls, clad in denim and flannel, push her air mattress鈥攚hile she’s still sleeping on it鈥攐ut onto the lake.

The lesson? Caring what you wear in the backcountry woods is dumb. If only it were that simple.

Emma Gatewood, the first recorded woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail solo, famously conducted her treks with little more than a pair of converse and a shower curtain that she used as a tarp. Pictures of 鈥淕randma Gatewood鈥� show her in slacks and a visor, with what looks like a laundry bag thrown over her shoulder. She鈥檚 like your great aunt on her way to play mini golf.

Unfortunately, I am more of a Meredith Blake than an Emma Gatewood. It鈥檚 so dorky to admit you want to look hot, and even more embarrassing to admit that you want to look cool, while sleeping on the ground or hauling your sweaty body up the side of a mountain. Guilty as charged.

Unlike many of my midwestern friends, I did not grow up camping, hiking, or mountain biking. My grandfather was a geographer, and our vacations were spent driving to highway overlooks to observe rocky outcrops eroded by ancient glaciers. This did teach me how to read maps and use a compass, but at the end of the day we went back to a Holiday Inn so my sister and I could enjoy an indoor pool and tiny, free boxes of fruit loops.

I never camped seriously until I moved to rural Indiana and met my husband. He knows everything鈥攈e has backpacked solo since high school. He is the kind of person who can light a fire in 40 seconds and know which identical-seeming mushrooms will taste great in a frying pan and which will probably kill you.

On our first camping trip together, I鈥檓 almost certain I wore Frye motorcycle boots. I鈥檓 100 percent sure I was very wet, cold, and miserable. It was clear I was out of my element. But even still, I knew that I was surrounded by tremendous beauty.

I looked at the tawny, chilled-out men and women who populated my extended social orbit. People with dogs (usually working breeds, who could keep up with their adventures). People who owned tents, wore hiking boots that had been re-laced and re-soled, who definitely knew what to do when they entered a climbing gym. I remember watching, impressed, as a friend unpack her stocked camping mess kit, each lightweight dish popping out of the next like a nesting doll.

There seemed to be a correct way to partake in this, but I suspected it was also dumb to care about it. So I pretended to know what I was doing鈥攖hat I was part of the culture.

Like every sport or subculture, hiking and camping have their totems, signifiers, and uniforms. I was a high school cross-country runner, and I remember vividly when a new runner joined the team and wore tall socks, instead of the little invisible ankle socks that every other team member wore. Everyone on the team noticed his tall socks.

I still have a screenshot saved in my camera roll of an Instagram post from an acquaintance who regularly camped out west. Before a kayaking trip, she had taken a picture of her gear laid flat, like a tablescape from a Real Simple catalog. I studied it like a handbook. A homespun quilt. A tiny hammock that packed into a satisfying pouch the size of a paperback book. A tie-dyed sports bra. A beat-up nylon duffel.

I wanted to be the kind of person who owned those things鈥攁nd by the transitive property鈥攁 person who belonged in the outdoors with people like her.

Soon after I graduated, I got a real job and had, for the first time, enough money to buy my own gear. I took note of outdoor lifestyle signifiers: the telltale white slash across a tanned foot from a Teva sandal. The Nalgene water bottle with the stickers and, for some reason, duct tape fastened around the bottom.

Some of this is marketing nonsense. But also: Nalgene water bottles are fantastic, and they make perfect cocktail shakers in a pinch. My Keen hiking boots got me to the top of mountains better than my Fryes ever could. I will forever be an ardent lover of the Teva Hurricane XLTs.

And I have to admit that I liked looking the part. As I became more of a lover of the outdoors, I relished wearing that love on my body. Look at me! Look at the kind of person I am!

As I built my collection, I became more competent and self-sufficient. I learned to stake a tent, not to panic when I found myself off a known trail or when storms flooded my campsite, and how to build a fire without crying in frustration. I learned nothing tastes better than Easy Mac after 12 hours of paddling, and that if I walked far enough into the woods by myself, I could fall into a trance that drained all thoughts from my head.

When my husband and I were hiking near the Fiery Gizzard Trail in Tennessee, we hooked up with fellow campers at the next site. As we sat around the fire, I realized, with fascination, that we were all wearing the same outfit: a Patagonia fleece, leggings, a Petzl headlamp, and Keens. Whereas many years ago I would have beamed with pride, I inwardly shrugged. Of course this is what we鈥檙e wearing! It鈥檚 the uniform.

In between then and now, I鈥檝e camped and hiked dozens of times. I鈥檝e probably built my own version of that ideal camping duffel, but I鈥檝e also completed a gravel bike ride in shower slides, a bad hike in Lululemon leggings I had to hold up with one hand, and a camping trip gone awry where I was forced to sleep in street clothes in the front seat of my car. If you love the outdoors, nature always finds you, even on days when you鈥檙e not wearing the correct outfit.

Last summer, a group of friends and I tramped through the Missouri Ozarks on the hottest day of the year, swimming in the granite shut-ins and shedding gallons of sweat. It was the last hike I did with our dog Ginger before she died, and I鈥檒l always remember her big paws paddling her slowly through the cold water.

At the end of the day, finally back at the secluded campsite, I took what I call a 鈥渟pigot shower.鈥� When no proper bathroom is available, I take my largest, most ridiculous bottle, dump water over my head, soap up, and dump it again.

As the sun set and the stars of the Summer Triangle appeared in the sky, I felt the water, still warm from the ground. Smoke rose from wood fires, the cicadas screamed. I was outdoors, and I wasn鈥檛 wearing anything at all.

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A golden chain-link water bottle holder, carried by the Beverly Hills princesses in Clueless. Miuccia Prada, taking a bow after a fashion show in Teva sandals. A tent emblazoned with the house鈥檚 logo, yours for just $3,500 on Gucci dot com!

For decades, high-fashion designers have dressed their models up in gorpy drag and sent them down runways, wearing items that are sometimes gorgeous (Gucci and The North Face鈥檚 ), sometimes silly (Proenza Schouler鈥檚retailed for three figures) and sometimes gorgeously silly (Jacquemus鈥� 2021, which paired tiny, striped spandex shorts for men with a tennis-ball green vest, blue oxford and hiking boots).

For serious climbers or backpackers, the utilitarian, technical clothes that comprise 鈥渙utdoor fashion鈥� mean they鈥檒l stay dry, warm, and blister-free on their adventures. For other consumers, these clothes telegraph luxury, artistry, and sexiness.

鈥淔ashion has always had an interest in dipping into outdoor gear,鈥� said Jessica Glasscock, an adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design and the author of several books on fashion and culture. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really recognizing certain outdoor endeavors as acts of leisure as much as acts of sports, and therefore sort of seeing it as status activity. Fashion typically is interested in hooking into the status of having the time and wherewithal to adventure.鈥�

The first outdoorsy high-fashion design that comes to mind for Glasscock is the so-called safari suit. The lightweight jacket-and-pants combo that became popular in the mid-20th century was based on European military uniforms worn by colonizing British and German troops in warm climates in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Usually made in lightweight fabric and featuring epaulets and pockets across the front, the getup was sometimes accessorized with a rifle and a pith helmet. Well-to-do Europeans and Americans began to wear the suits on 鈥渟afari鈥� trips to African countries, and the outfit became synonymous with famous gentlemen adventurers, including Ernest Hemingway.

A generation later, Glasscock said, the safari suit was updated for women. A from 1969 shows the French designer flanked by very groovy looking it-girls Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise, all three wearing sexy versions of the khaki suits. Betty pairs her lace-up safari minidress with a silk scarf and belt slung across her tiny hips and piratey leather thigh-high boots. These outfits are not for camping.

鈥淔ashion loves contradictions, and it loves tension, and part of that comes out of taking signifiers of one thing and putting them on unlikely people or in unlikely places,鈥� said Robin Givhan, senior critic-at-large for the Washington Post. 鈥淎nd so the idea of taking a fabric that is associated with rugged outdoorsmanship, and using that to create something precious鈥�.it鈥檚 sort of the bread and butter of fashion.鈥�

Versions of the safari jacket are still popular on the runway and at the mall, although politically-savvy brands have leaned away from the garment鈥檚 colonialist roots by calling items 鈥渇ield jackets鈥� and pairing them with jeans instead of pith helmets.

Other iterations of outdoors-influenced fashion are not so clear-cut. One of the most enduring examples of the aesthetic is Prada鈥檚 use of nylon鈥攁 durable, unsexy fabric, which the outdoor industry often uses for everything from running shorts to chalk bags鈥攖o make covetable handbags and backpacks, all outfitted with the house鈥檚 telltale triangle logo.

鈥淲e鈥檙e going to take this concept that鈥檚 associated with utility, with usefulness, with practicality, also with this sort of privilege of being able to get out and about in a certain way,鈥� said Glasscock. 鈥淏ut we鈥檙e going to make it a product and we鈥檙e going to make it more appealing for an audience that might be engaged with that lifestyle, but also wants to speak of themselves as a fashion-label person.鈥�

Recently, high-fashion houses, including Jil Sander, have made the influence of outdoor recreation even more explicit by partnering with brands like Arc’teryx, said Adrian Verin, a sports and lifestyle expert at Carlin Creative, a France-based trend bureau.

Teaming up makes sense as luxury brands take more inspiration from streetwear, he said. The lines between fancier clothes and outdoors clothes are blurring as fashionable young people pair Patagonia or Arc鈥檛eryx with pieces from Louis Vuitton or Balenciaga.

鈥淧eople who used to wear outdoor clothes or accessories were like some kind of nerds, just kinds of people that don’t really look stylish,鈥� he said (his French accent made this sound less harsh). But 鈥渕any people now use clothes that you can wear in the city, that can be worn at home, that can be worn in the outdoors. Something really modular.鈥�

Perhaps the partnership that鈥檚 attracted the most attention is Gucci鈥檚 collaboration with The North Face. The brands鈥� first collection (introduced in late 2020), was so successful that the two rolled out a second in late 2021. In promotional pictures for the line (prices average in the mid-four figures), a model wearing a pink ski jacket and a corset climbs up loose gravel at the bank of an Icelandic river, white Lillies in one hand, a $3000 black leather Jackie handbag in the other.

Are people wearing these items to camp? It鈥檚 hard to say, says Givhan. Maybe in Aspen? 鈥淚 think that every time I’m on the Metro and I see someone with some sort of an industrial sports sack kind of backpack on and some big metal water bottle,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 just like, where are you going?鈥�

Some people savaged the Gucci and Jil Sander collabs. One online called a huge Gucci mud-brown puffy jacket 鈥渢he Uncle Buck special,鈥� and some (rightfully) a knee-length Jil Sander ski jacket was not really that practical for skiing, actually, thanks to its long length.

But the timing for the collaborations makes sense, said Verin. The two high-profile partnerships launched about a year after COVID-19 brought much of the world to a standstill. After all, during a pandemic, health and freedom could be considered the ultimate luxury.

鈥淚 think that the new luxury is the capacity to go outside, and to move in an environment that鈥檚 safe,鈥� he said. 鈥淒uring the lockdown, many people were dreaming of going into the mountains or going into the great outdoors.鈥�

Abigail Tananbaum, the founder and creator of the outdoor-gear brand MATEK, which makes cozy base layers and balaclavas for men, women, and children, said the aesthetic telegraphs not only leisure but also ability and expertise.

And, as anyone who has admired the elegant way a lightweight rain jacket folds into a tiny pouch, or marveled at how a hiking boot keeps an icy stream from saturating wool socks knows 鈥� outdoors gear is just plain nifty. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why I wanted to make a turtleneck that doesn鈥檛 have to stay in my ski gear closet, it can be in my normal closet,鈥� she said. 鈥溾�橧鈥檓 definitely inspired by both [fashion and function], but definitely the function of outdoor gear is the most important. I think it鈥檚 almost a good influence on fashion, when it鈥檚 becoming a little more functional.鈥�

The beauty of nature is automatically grafted onto outdoorsy clothes by association, Tananbaum said. When one wears a ski jacket, even when simply traveling on the train, they can picture themselves atop a mountain ski lift, poised to race down a hill blanketed in crisp snow and darkly lush fir trees. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 have a backdrop of a mountain and have the subject in the photo not look incredibly chic,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 even know if I answered your question, I鈥檓 sorry! I鈥檓 just in Colorado looking at a mountain so I鈥檓 a little distracted.鈥�

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