Gorpcore was once a niche subculture for climbers, hikers and weekend campers, but has since become one of fashion’s most influential aesthetics. Even though it’s designed for extreme weather conditions, technical shells are being styled with Prada loafers and waterproof pants appear as often in London cafés as they do on mountain trails. But as luxury fashion moves into gorpcore, and high-performance materials migrate into everyday wardrobes, the risks associated with gorpcore’s performance-enhancing chemicals do, too.
At the center of this are PFAS — or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances — a vast family of synthetic chemicals prized for its ability to repel water, stains and oil. In outdoor apparel, they’re everywhere: in waterproof coatings, stain-resistant finishes, odor-control treatments and even some membranes. They’re the reason a jacket keeps you dry in a storm or a pair of pants withstands abrasive wear. But they’re also persistent and increasingly linked to a long list of environmental and health risks.
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“PFAS have really been one of the most pressing issues in the past decade. Commonly known as ‘forever chemicals’ [...] what makes PFAS a real problem is their persistence and mobility,” says Dr. Daniel Waterkamp of Bluesign, an organization and certifying body that supports brands, manufacturers and chemical suppliers with safe chemical management. “PFAS have spread around the world and can even be found in the Arctic. Some substances in the PFAS family are proven to bioaccumulate [meaning they build up in the body over time] and to be carcinogenic and toxic to reproduction.”
Despite rising awareness, PFAS have remained deeply embedded in the outdoor sector because the technical supply chain is specialized, global and slow to shift. “Phasing things out can take time. It took us a decade to get our entire line free of intentionally added PFAS because we did not want to sacrifice quality,” says Matt Dwyer, VP of product footprint at Patagonia. The brand uses the phrase “intentionally added PFAS” to distinguish between chemicals purposefully used in production and the trace contamination that can appear unintentionally. Patagonia also worked with waterproof membrane supplier Gore-Tex to develop a new PFAS-free material called expanded polyethylene (ePE), which is a safer, non-toxic alternative, Dwyer adds. “[That] helps the entire industry move forward.”
Systemic change is possible, but far from complete, adds Rebecca Fuoco, director of science communications at the Green Science Policy Institute. “A big piece of the problem is supply chain complexity. Textile mills, finishers, laminators and membrane suppliers have long experience with fluorinated products. Switching requires retooling, new process controls, testing protocols and new supplier relationships,” she explains. Still, several brands have proven the transition is practically and economically feasible. “[Footwear brand] Keen and [sportswear brand] Houdini have been PFAS-free for years; and as of spring 2025, all Patagonia products are made without intentionally added PFAS.”
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A toxic performance
The health implications of PFAS are well documented. “PFAS exposure is linked to thyroid dysfunction, liver and kidney damage, suppressed immune response, hormonal disruption, developmental delays in children and several cancers,” says Fuoco. While consumers can absorb a very small amount of PFAS directly through wearing clothing in contact with skin, PFAS also shed, meaning they are in the household dust that we breathe and ingest. “This contributes to cumulative body burden over time,” she adds, noting that the textile workers making gorpcore garments tend to experience PFAS body burdens five to 10 times higher than the general population, with significantly increased risks of liver disease and cancer.
But PFAS are only the starting point. Performance apparel often relies on chemical systems for functions far beyond waterproofing, including stain repellents, wicking agents, flame retardants, anti-pilling coatings, anti-fungal treatments and solvent-heavy laminates.
Odor-control finishes are a prime example, frequently touted as a benefit of gorpcore clothes. These antimicrobial treatments are marketed as maintaining freshness, but experts note that while some formulations work under certain conditions, many others show limited or inconsistent efficacy. “In backcountry or high-sweat technical use, antimicrobial coatings are sometimes added with the intention of slowing odor build-up,” Fuoco explains. Some “release metals and biocides into wastewater and expose workers to chemicals linked to skin and breathing problems, reproductive harms, microbiome disruption and more”, she adds.
Beyond the wearer, these chemicals move through the garment’s entire lifecycle, released during production, washing and disposal. Wastewater treatment plants cannot fully filter PFAS or many antimicrobial agents, meaning they accumulate in rivers, soil, agricultural systems and even drinking water. Once released, many persist for decades. And then there’s abrasion. Everyday use — backpacks rubbing against jackets, sleeves brushing café tables, pants scraping along bike saddles — erodes technical coatings and sheds microplastics and chemical-laced dust into the environment. High-performance fabrics, designed to last through storms, paradoxically shed more when worn casually and washed frequently in everyday life.
A path forward
Some brands are demonstrating what high performance without PFAS can look like.
Páramo, long considered an outlier in the outdoor sector, has built its waterproofing system around a PFAS-free approach from the start. Its Analogy waterproofing system, developed in collaboration with PFAS-free waterproofing specialist Nikwax, “provides ultra-breathable performance without laminates, membranes or taped seams”, says Samantha Theron, Páramo’s head of marketing and communications.
The system uses a two-layer construction. The first layer is an outer, closely woven synthetic microfiber — typically nylon or polyester — finished with a durable, water-repellent (DWR) finish. This DWR is a water-based, non-fluorinated (meaning it contains no PFAS, or other “forever chemicals”) polymer designed to bond to the fibers and help the surface shed rain. Then, there’s an inner “pump liner”, also made from synthetic fibers, designed to transport liquid water (sweat or condensation) outward, mimicking how fur works in wet conditions.
Crucially, because there is no bonded membrane or taped seams, there are fewer failure points and the waterproofing can be renewed indefinitely with Nikwax’s water-based aftercare products. Still, the approach has its own trade-offs. Garments are typically heavier and warmer than membrane-based shells, and like all synthetics, they can still shed microfibers during washing, illustrating that PFAS-free does not automatically mean impact-free.
Páramo also emphasizes maintenance as a sustainability tool. “The most sustainable outdoor choice isn’t replacing your gear, it’s maintaining it,” notes Theron. Proper cleaning and reproofing can dramatically extend the life of technical garments, and while PFAS-free coatings sometimes require more frequent upkeep, performance can be quickly restored with Nikwax aftercare. The brand says many of its original jackets are still used daily and perform well after 15 years or more.
Durability is also a cornerstone of Patagonia’s transition away from PFAS. “As we were introducing non-PFAS-based DWR for technical use, we had to go through hundreds of combinations of fabrics and treatments to find things that worked and fit within our environmental responsibility requirements,” says Dwyer. “Not every waterproofing worked with every material, so we had to systematically work through the combinations to find what worked best.” In practice, the team found that some early PFAS-free chemistries simply didn’t hold up. Certain coatings caused fabrics to feel stiff or noisy, others reduced breathability, while some “wet out” (meaning the outer fabric starts to absorb water instead of repelling it) far faster than the fluorinated versions they were meant to replace. In a few cases, the alternatives compromised abrasion resistance or tear strength, which meant Patagonia had to either rethink the fabric construction or limit where a given treatment could be used. Those setbacks, Dwyer notes, were part of the learning curve — a reminder that moving away from PFAS often means compromising between performance, durability and environmental impact, rather than finding a single substitute that works everywhere.
Patagonia’s approach also required rethinking where PFAS and related chemistries were being used unnecessarily. “We started looking at all applications of the chemistries across our product line and started either replacing them in non-critical applications with suitable substitutes, or just stopping use altogether in some cases,” Dwyer adds. For example, in its Black Hole bags — Patagonia’s durable travel and outdoor duffles and backpacks known for their weather-resistant design and TPU-laminated fabric — the inner lining once used PFAS-based treatments even though the bags are geared for transport rather than extreme waterproofing. By removing the PFAS-treated lining, Patagonia eliminated a non-critical PFAS use case. The brand’s final step, transitioning its fly-fishing waders, is complete as of spring 2025, marking the end of a decade-long shift.
The company is also experimenting with end-of-life solutions, which is still a major gap in technical apparel. For example, Patagonia’s Nano Puff program collects irreparable items and sends them to a specialized recycler in Texas founded by material innovation company Eastman, where the brand says they are processed into new fiber, signaling the future direction of circularity for performance gear. In 2024, Patagonia says it shipped around 8,000 pounds of unusable apparel into this system — a promising proof of concept, but still tiny compared with global textile waste, and the process comes with big caveats:Eastman only accepts feedstock that’s pure polyester and “clean” of zips, buttons and other non-fabric components, meaning each piece has to be carefully sorted and stripped before it can be recycled. Those constraints help explain why textile-to-textile schemes remain experimental rather than truly scalable, even as they hint at a more circular future for performance gear.
Patagonia also focuses on circularity by expanding repair and product care guidance through its Worn Wear program. Last year, the program repaired more than 170,000 products globally. “The most responsible product is the one you already own,” says Dwyer. “Across the company, we constantly question whether responsible growth is possible without compromising our values. That means asking questions such as: does this product need to exist? Can it be repaired? Will it last? And can we reduce the impact of making it?”
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As PFAS-free claims become more visible, experts caution that simplistic marketing can obscure a more nuanced reality. Labels such as “PFAS-free” or “chemical safe” imply absolutes that chemistry rarely offers. “Those expressions are misleading,” says Bluesign’s Dr. Waterkamp. To avoid greenwashing, brands should work with partners to “combine technical know-how with robust digital tools to record, verify and manage impact data”, he adds.
It’s a level of scrutiny that some brands have already begun to apply internally. In 2014, with mounting evidence of the harmful, persistent nature of fluorinated chemicals, Páramo introduced a fabric-testing protocol, which it says guarantees total exclusion of PFAS across all products and processes. The test, known as combustion ion chromatography, uses high-temperature combustion followed by ion analysis to detect even trace fluorinated substances. Yet, relatively few outdoors brands have adopted it, partly because it can be technically demanding, requires specialist lab equipment and expertise, and is more expensive than simpler spot checks. There are also practical limitations: it is typically used on selected samples rather than every single item, and it can’t (on its own) fix upstream problems in complex global supply chains, so it is far from a total guarantee in practice.
The newness issue
Behind the chemistry debates sits a more uncomfortable truth: the outdoors industry’s growth model is itself a sustainability problem. As gorpcore continues to push performance gear into everyday fashion, many brands now design for “newness” rather than longevity, producing more styles, more frequently, for a broader pool of less specialist customers. These garments are often worn daily rather than for occasional outdoors use, meaning they wear out faster — driving up replacement cycles, and, by extension, the total volume of PFAS-treated products entering the world, whether or not the chemistries are changing.
The brands acknowledge the tension. Patagonia’s Dwyer argues that shifting consumer identity is essential: “If we want people to start seeing themselves as product owners rather than consumers, we as businesses must help explain why that’s necessary and what that means. It means that businesses should be investing in building high-quality products, making them repairable, and researching responsible end-of-life solutions.” This responsibility also extends to education around non-PFAS chemistries, which, he notes, “are more susceptible to outside contamination, like oils or sweat”, and therefore require more routine care to maintain performance.
For Dwyer, the industry needs to abandon the idea that sustainability can be framed as a selling point at all. “Nothing we do is sustainable,” he says. “We have to move past using environmental responsibility as a marketing claim or a product benefit. Environmental responsibility must become the norm for all companies.”
