Is a second garment better than a dearer single one?
research/garment-wearpair
Is a second garment better than a dearer single one? A shell-and-layer pair beats the best single garment at the same budget in 54 of 66 wearing mixes at $50 and $100 (mean +0.49 C and +1.02 C) once thin cloth is removed; the apparent $20 gain is an artefact of thin cloth's negative assumed cost. Stylised; premiums and wearing shares assumed.
What it found
Lets the wearer own two garments (a shell and a layer) and wear whichever is most comfortable in each of three scenarios, searching all lever pairs under one total added-retail budget on the replica trench. With thin cloth allowed the pair beats the best single garment in 58 of 66 wearing mixes at $50, but the apparent $20 gain is an artefact: thin cloth has a negative assumed cost that funds the second garment. With thin cloth removed the gain is 0 at $20, +0.49 °C (54 of 66 mixes) at $50 and +1.02 °C at $100, usually a warm-weather infrared-transparent shell plus a cold-weather thick low-emissivity coat. Stylised: premiums, wearing shares and fabric properties are assumed, garments are not stacked, and no real garment was measured.
A figure from its own output
Paper, code and results
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Produced with AI assistance (Claude). Results are from the code in this repository and are simulated or stylised unless the abstract says otherwise; nothing here implies affiliation with or endorsement by any lab, researcher or company cited. MIT licensed.