Yesterday a collection of scientists, designers, students, journalists and outdoor brand owners converged in the leafy suburbs of Leeds for the 30th Survival conference.
Organised by the University of Leeds this conference brings together a collection of people associated in developing materials and finished products for extreme environments and focusses on presenting ideas, research and studies on everything from the application and evaluation of materials to laboratory and field trials of comfort management systems.
Photograph: NASA
As it was the 30th Anniversary the theme was about celebrating the past, present and the future. Dave Brook, recently retired director of the performance clothing research group gave an illuminating talk on the development of thermal testing from the late 70's onwards, a talk made all the more relevant by the fact that Mountain Equipment and its founder, Peter Hutchinson were instrumental in many of the technological developments and associated testing started by the University of Leeds that are now commmon-place in our industry. It also highlighted just how long we as a brand have supported independent scientific study to support field trials and evaluation.
But there was also a little more off the wall analysis also! I learnt more about the development of Space Suits than I ever realised there was to know - including the fact they would cost around $2 million each today(ouch!), some interesting studies on the problems with laboratory testing of sleeping bags vs field trials and some potentially exciting materials research on carbon fibre karabiners.But there is a very serious point to all of this, and that is the joint roles of science and design in performance clothing and reinforced just how many products and materials we now and in the future will take for granted thanks to those humans operating at the edge of what is possible.
