Hi folks! I wanted to post a review of Outlier’s nycogaze tees. Unlike my recent reviews, I did not receive a review unit, I bought these shirts. 

Tl;dr Nycogaze fucking rocks for hot weather and travel, but it’s expensive. The new cut is even better. 

Photo gallery here.

Sizing

I typically take medium in outlier tops. I’m 5’9 and 170-180lb. In the cut two tees, I have sizes M, L, and XL (2025). L (2025) probably fit me best, but even XL worked (just a bit too long). In the 2025 run, M could feel a bit too snug. In 2026 the cut was made a bit wider and shorter. So I take medium in the 2026 run. I think the 2026 run is by far the best in terms of sizing. Taking L and XL in prior runs didn't necessarily work best for my torso length (I was sizing based on comfort rather than aesthetics).

Fabric and Such

Nycogaze is basically gauze: sheer, extremely thin, stretchy, and surprisingly rough to the touch. 

I am at a point where I resent wearing basically anything except nycogaze as a base layer in the summer. I live in New York City, and it’s humid as fuck here – our climate is apparently now considered subtropical. I do not handle extreme heat very well, and I did not realize until relatively recently how much my clothing can influence my heat tolerance. Nycogaze lets me handle sauna weather much, much better than other materials I’ve tried. 

My first experience with it was a tight tank (TTS), and I hated the abrasive handfeel against skin. Fortunately, the looser cuts solve that problem for me. In the Cut Two and Loose Tank, the fabric has enough room to float away from the body, which makes it dramatically more comfortable. I think nycogaze works best in looser cuts. 

I find nycogaze handles humidity very well. Nycogaze is absorbent, but unlike 100% cotton I find that it dries super fast. Even if I’m sweating a ton while out and about, the shirt doesn’t feel wet for very long.

Even outside of extreme heat, nycogaze is an excellent base layer—so long as I have layering options, I’d feel comfortable wearing it anywhere from 55-100+F. When I travel to warmer climates, I like wearing a nycogaze tee underneath a hoodie on the plane. Nycogaze packs down to basically nothing—you can fit 2-3 tees in the space of one normal cotton shirt—and it weighs almost nothing. Unlike merino, it doesn’t have rewearability, but I personally hate wearing merino tees above ~65F anyway, so they’re not really competing. 

I don’t baby these shirts at all. Mine go through wash-and-fold services, meaning warm wash and full high-heat drying unless I pay extra to stop them. So far they’ve handled the nuclear treatment just fine, and the 2025 run doesn’t seem to shrink at all. That said, I wouldn’t call nycogaze durable. I wouldn’t wear it hiking through dense brush or around pets with sharp claws, and there’s at least one Discord horror story involving someone destroying a shirt with a seam ripper while trying to remove the lightning label.

On transparency: The white color of this shirt is, well, pretty damn sheer. Outlier product copy mentions you’ll see tattoos through it. You are also gonna have visible nipples, lmao (nipplegaze). For every other color, though, this isn’t really a concern. So, I wouldn’t wear the white shirt by itself for work or to meet my girlfriend’s dad. Still a great white summer tee though, and you can easily wear a lightweight button down over it. 

Gripes (Mostly Other People's Gripes)

The only negative thing I have to say about the nycogaze tees relates to branding. The Outlier swan logo on the back of the neck is pretty visually apparent from the back and I don’t think it is an aesthetic benefit. Though I guess if I had to choose between the lightning label and the circle-on-back, I’d choose the latter. The lightning label isn’t something I hate in all forms—I think it looks cool on the deux back pocket and on the warmshirt front pocket—but on nycogaze tees, I notice it sometimes rubbing against my side when lying down/sleeping. Ordinarily I’d just seam rip the label off, but I don’t trust myself to do that with a shirt this fragile. 

Oh, and I think the loose tank is much better than the muscle tank. Oh well.

There’s been some Discord debate about whether nycogaze is safe for gym use. I lift in it all the time without issues, but I also don’t do exercises where barbell knurling would scrape directly against the fabric. For cardio or lifting without barbell contact, I think it’s fantastic: it stays comfortable while sweaty and dries quickly. The only mildly unpleasant experience I’ve had was occasionally feeling the rough fabric rub against skin, one time, while doing incline bicep curls. So IME they're good for the gym. That being said, I wouldn't treat these as like dedicated "gym shirts" per se (pretty expensive shirts for just one short use); I work out in the mornings, so I wear nycogaze tees for a day/sleep in them and then wake up and wear it to the gym.

The other perpetual Discord gripe revolves around “bacon collar,” i.e., the collar of these shirts being wavy/crumpled. I just do not give a shit about this. I haven’t really noticed the issue with my own shirts, but I admit I don’t think about it very much. When I have noticed it it’s on my larger shirts (XLs). You can see in the pics here that it’s not really happening much; I didn’t select photos specifically based on collar waviness, either. To the extent that it does happen, though, I think that's just the nature of the super-lightweight material.

Comparisons

Although Outlier recommends ramielust for hot and humid, I really don’t find that ramie wears that much cooler / better for me than nycogaze in humidity. I have one ramielust tank, and I like it, but I have no desire for any more items in that fabric. By contrast, I had like 10 nycogaze shirts earlier this year and picked up more in the 2026 drop. The other Outlier material maybe worth mentioning is overkill mesh. In my experience, the temp ceiling of OKM is lower than nycogaze (around 90F max), and in direct sunlight I often feel like it starts to really absorb heat and transfer it to me. Love OKM, but if it’s a scorcher, I won’t reach for it. 

I think the main 'competitor fabric' outside of Outlier is probably just synthetics made for exercise. I admit I don't have a ton of experience with these so I'll just refrain from saying much there except that nycogaze probably handles long-term stink better while also being much more expensive.

Value

A few years ago, the idea of paying serious money for t-shirts would have sounded insane to me. Merino was probably the gateway drug. Now here I am, writing: “The shirt that costs triple digits and is meant to be worn only in the summer is really worth it, I promise!”

So what is my price sensitivity for nycogaze? I never buy it retail without the BBE discount (~$104), and ideally I combine it with the private sale or Upfront discount (~$90). Several were obtained secondhand for prices between $50-75. I apparently wrote 9 months ago that I owned 3 shirts and wanted 10. Well, now I own 13 and am thinking about more… 

Personally, I’d love to see the nycogaze C2 dip below $100 at retail. Part of the issue is positioning. Brands like LWC sell MiUSA cotton tees at $50–60 each in two packs, while Merz occupies the “luxury cotton” lane around $120. Don’t kill me, Abe—a lot of consumers are going to look at “70% cotton” and think, “Where’s my 30% discount?” I obviously don’t feel that way, but I do think it affects how people evaluate the product. I wonder whether something like 2-packs or steeper multi-item BBE discounts (at 5? 7?) could broaden the audience. 

Conclusion

If you can afford to get nycogaze, and you live in a climate where you regularly deal with intense heat, I can’t recommend it strongly enough. If I ever feel this stuff is in danger of becoming unavailable for good, I will be hoarding it like a doomsday prepper with canned beans. 

shirobako

shirobako

Hello folks! This is a review of the Injex Midis, slated to release on April 28th. It’s dropping in the colors Black, Earthshot, Sagemirage, and Lightlines. I took Earthshot for this review. 

Here are some pics.  

Tl;dr Linears were already good and they added a 5th pocket and powermesh in the front, which is Better. No more pleats though. Is this the injex pant’s final form?  

Disclaimer

I received a review unit from Outlier. I will endeavor to give you my most honest impressions. 

I’ve owned / at least tried on various injex pants in the past: injected linen pants, highdarts, linears, single pleats, gliders, dartflows, loose onethrees. This informs my comparisons throughout.

Sizing

I took a size 32 and needed to get them hemmed (chopped about 3” off inseam). My specs: 5’9, typically a size 31-33 in outlier recent runs, roughly 170-180lb. I could probably also swing a 33 in Midis. I wouldn’t size down. 

Comparison to related cuts – all size 32. (Official size charts vs. my measurements of Midis, please assume my measure is inexact)

.	Single pleats	Linears	Loose onethrees	Midis (not official measure)
Top	17.125	17	17	~17–17.25
Rise	12.25	12.375	11.625	~12–12.25
Thigh	13.75	14.5	13.75	~14.5
Inseam	31.25	36	32.5	32
Leg opening	9	9.5	10.75	9

So, as you can see from the table, midis are kind of like an average (median? Midian? sorry) of the family of straight cut injex pants. 

Fabric

Injex is a well known fabric (read more here), so I’m not going to describe it at length, but, I think pants are the best application of injex in general. Injex runs hotter than lighter-weight 100% linen garments you’ll find out there, but in exchange it has different wrinkle behavior (doesn’t turn into a napkin instantly or require much care) and is more durable. For shirting, injex can sometimes be too stuffy for real summer heat. For pants, it’s excellent. 

The key is a wider cut to allow the fabric to move further away from the skin. In my opinion, relatively tighter-fitting cuts like ILP don’t necessarily “outperform” other natural fabrics like cotton in terms of temp range, especially when those fabrics are in lighter weights or looser cuts. With injex, you don’t really want slimmer cuts. This is true of basically any linen. There’s not much point of increasing airflow if it’s sticking to your skin. Linen already looks pretty causal compared to other fabrics, so you might as well embrace the vibe and go wider. 

Generally, I wear injex in temp ranges of approximately 60 to 95 F (though even the widest injex pants start to be stuffy above 85F in humid weather; it’s shorts or suffer at that point). 

Outlier are also using new dyeing methods with injex these days. Copy-pasting Abe’s comment in this sub recently about RDX vs RD: “Linen and polyester use totally different dyes. With RD the linen and polyester are dyed the same color, although there might be slight tonal differences. With RDX the linen and polyester are dyed different colors. Since the yarns are quite small, you can see the two color effect of RDX up close, but from most distances you eye will merge them to look like one color with a lot more depth than you can get when dyeing with just one color.”

Basically it’s two-tone. I have some RDX gothic (black/red) items from last year, I think some instances of RDX are a huge hit. Somewhat divisive in the community whether RDX is good or RD is always better. I like some instances from each category and I like the experimentation. Which is why I asked for my review unit to be in an RDX color. 

Cut

Overall, these look and feel like the Linears with some good tweaks. My impression of the design history for the Midis form: single pleats -> linears -> loose onethrees -> (loosies, non injex) -> midis. So this is now like the 5th or 6th take (or maybe more) on a form of truly “straight-cut” (technically more linear than traditional straight cut) pants that has been applied across fabrics. 

My tl;dr there is: Leg opening is closer to single pleats than linears or loose onethrees, and they also seem to have a thigh measurement that tracks most closely with linears. I feel that the Midis are slightly more forgiving in the top block compared to single pleats and linears, but I no longer have linears on-hand to compare, so I’m second-guessing myself a bit. According to the measurements, there shouldn’t be a dramatic difference. “Single pleats shape with bigger thigh and no pleat” is a reasonable summary. (I have started to jokingly think of Midis as “injex zero pleats.”) 

Linears are reasonably well-liked in the community. Unlike highdarts, they are meant to be worn at the hips. Highdarts and linears are worth comparing because they’re both pleated—but Midis (like Loosies and Loose onethrees) dispense with the pleats. I think I like the shape both with and without the pleat. I really loved the shape of the loose onethrees (if I remember right they had a bit of knee taper action that was flattering), but found the closure system unpleasant. I also love the 5th pocket on the highdarts / 109s and think basically all pants would benefit from one. I love it for the same reason I love organization in sling bags – I often carry a lot of small items (headphone case, keys, vape, etc) and having a small pocket helps my carry feel less chaotic. 

Midis are pretty much exactly what I wanted out of this kind of pant. We’ve got the 5th pocket, powermesh pockets, and a traditional closure system that allows them to be “dressed up” to a higher ceiling. This was my main request for iterating on the onethrees, and that makes Midis pretty much my endgame injex pant. I like wearing injex gliders sometimes, and I just picked up some 109s since I love the cannabiscotton 107s. But the Midis are a big winner I think. Probably the most versatile injex pant to date that is wide enough to benefit from the air flow. And if you want pleats, you can still go for the highdarts. (Though I can understand the perspective of someone who wanted a pleated injex pant meant to be worn at the hips; such a person is currently shit outta luck.)

Another tweak people may like is that the back pocket label has switched to a very small ultrasuede label, which is more subtle than some of the larger lightning labels that have been used recently.

The only “negative” thing I really have to say about the shape of the Midis is that I thought the loose onethrees were a bit more distinctive (more of a flare-out from the knee to the leg opening) and I found that flattering. But this minor shape difference doesn’t overcome my dislike of the button fly+onethree closure system in combination. I’d still pick Midis, given the choice. If injex flows get another run, that would probably fill the “big leg opening + slim waist injex pant” lane most effectively anyway. Midis are more reserved. I think that’s going to work perfectly for a lot of folks. 

I think someone on discord had pointed out that in the Loosies product photos, the fly looks a little bit strained or puckered in some of the pics. I think Midis are not fundamentally different there, but I honestly can’t bring myself to care about this. If you are really worried about that, I think sizing up +1 would probably reduce whatever tension is causing that puckering seen in some angles/photos. Haven’t had the chance to try these in 33 so can’t say so for sure. 

Value

The Midis price is announced at $280. This is around where Italodrill Loosies landed. Last year, Injex 109s dropped at $248, and came down to $210 this year (BBE, too). So basically I think the price on these is a Made in Manhattan situation and may improve in future drops. 

Folks on the Discord asked me: Why pay for Midis at $280 when the mainline Injex cuts usually retail closer to $200? If you already have a bunch of injex pants in various shapes (especially linears) and like them, then yeah, maybe the first run of these isn’t the time for you to upgrade. Of course, if you really want a color like Earthshot or Sagemirage or Lightlines, this might be your best chance. If you’ve been interested in Linears (family of cuts) and were waiting for an opportunity to try, I definitely recommend it. The feature adds (5 pocket, mesh pockets) are meaningful upgrades. 

One way to evaluate value is to think about situational usage. For example, I think dartflows are an amazing Outlier cut, and injex flows are an obvious winning combination of fabric and form. Using my nylistic flows as a reference case, I would say that the number of days a week (or month) when I feel that flows are appropriate to wear, is lower than the number of days that a more “straight cut” or reserved form is appropriate to wear. Midis really check a lot of the boxes that make injex flows awesome: lots of fabric motion for visual effect and airflow, flattering when worn at the hips, but midis require a bit less effort to style (I think). Or you might say that they can fit into a lot of people’s closets more easily. Highdarts are a similarly comfortable injex form, but I’d say they also require more effort to style than midis (thinking more about proportions) and I understand why the community is more split on that form.

If I was gonna recommend just one injex pant cut for someone to own, it would be the Midis. If I sold all my injex pants except one, I think Midis would be the keeper. Maybe there’ll be some more iterations in the future that improve it further somehow. Hopefully a bigger production run in the future will allow a lower price and/or BBE. But the actual pant I have in-hands right now feels very locked in, and I can recommend it wholeheartedly. I’m considering selling some highdarts and picking up a second pair of Midis in lightlines… Dry tan vs lightlines is a hard choice!

Conclusion

One might argue that Midis are the final form of the family of cuts that includes Linears. They don’t have pleats anymore, but they’ve got some other great features, and it’s ultimately a super versatile and locked-in form for a tried and tested Outlier fabric. 

In my review of new nylistic highdarts last year, I said I would be interested in seeing nylistic in a cut closer to corps. Midis would be great too. I think Midis form (or something like it) would be a great sort of “middle range” cut that works for many fabrics, especially those that are less structured.