Sliced Bread

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Sliced Bread Presents: Outdoor Clothing

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Outdoor Clothing

BBC Radio 4 - Sliced Bread, Outdoor Clothing

Do fabrics that promise to wick away sweat and keep you comfy whatever the weather work?

Greg Foot investigates whether the fabrics used in outdoor clothing that 'wick away' sweat and regulate your temperature are the best thing since sliced bread - or marketing BS.

If you’ve ever made the mistake of going for a hike wearing just jeans and a t-shirt you’ll know it can be a pretty sweaty, uncomfortable experience. But it doesn’t have to be that way! There are myriad products promising to keep you dry, warm and protected from whatever the weather can throw at you. 

Listener Julie is keen to know more about that after she went on an adventure holiday without the right kit, leaving her cold and miserable.

She’s heard about fabrics that promise to ‘wick away’ the sweat and others that keep you warm in cold weather and cool when it’s hot. And what about the jackets that claim to stop rain getting in yet still be breathable enough to let vapour and sweat out. How does that work?!

I’ll be finding out by speaking to an expert in textile technology and the Gear Editor from the UK’s best-selling walking magazine.

Once again this series we’re testing and investigating your suggested wonder-products, so if you’ve seen an ad, trend or fad, and wonder if there’s any evidence to back up a claim, drop us an email to sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or you can send us a voice note to our WhatsApp number: 07543 306807

PRESENTER: Greg Foot
PRODUCER: Simon Hoban

Sliced Bread Presents

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

While Sliced Bread takes a break, we serve up... Toast.

While Sliced Bread takes a break, we serve up... Toast. Sean Farrington examines the spectacular failures of wonder products and businesses which had promised so much.

While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up... Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers.    

In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist, Sean Farrington, examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt?  

Some of the world's most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world's most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? 

Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently? 

The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand's fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions.  

From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked. 

Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in February. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds.

Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.

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