Some years ago I was doing my usual browsing on social media and I came across a European guy who mentioned the Triple-X camo, said to be the closest legal version of the impossible to get Latvian LATPAT or Multi-LATPAT camo pattern. As a person who's usually interested particularly in European camo patterns I took interest and at the same time the guy introduced me to the shop that produces the clothing and equipment caught my attention, The 3rd Alternative.
(Image taken from soldiersystems)
Honestly at first glance it looked like just about every new camo on the market that fills in a niche somewhere in the world and also looked goofy like pajama patterns with the multi colored Y shaped digital patterns splattered over the green base color but man, I'll say the promotional images for the Triple-X made the pattern and color tones effective for wherever it was presented and I have a soft spot for weird obscure camo patterns. I will be writing a new post about this camo pattern in my area at a later time when I get around to testing it. You can read about it in the soldiersystems link above or here, 3rd Alternative shop.
Who are the 3rd Alternative?
3rd Alternative is a small custom tailor shop based in Poland who produce custom tailor gear for their patrons but also sell their own design of clothing and equipment for everyday casual use as well as combat. They utilize many good quality materials including Polartec and Cordura, and their products are made to order.
Fast forward to late winter or early spring of 2020 I remembered about it after browsing through my saved bookmarks and I decided to go ahead and order something from them, in part because I was pretty interested in their combat shirt design where you have a full zippered front and it looked very slick. I chose to get their Hybrid Torrid combat shirt in the Triple-X camo because I generally operate in a tropical climate most of the time, though I do have access to alpine and other dry or cooler biomes where I live. According to their policy as of this blog, orders may take up to 15 days before it is shipped out and of course international shipping will extend that even further. It took mines roughly a whole month after it got shipped so unfortunately that's just the reality of the worst case scenario of standard international shipping.
First Impressions
The material is thin but feels absolutely durable and comfortable. The velcro loop for patches is a different material than your typical bushy velcro you'd find anywhere, and I really like it. I won't get into the details on the materials they used to make these shirts so I'll leave a link here. The materials are of good quality and they give a very detailed description of what textiles are used where.
I don't have a lot of time wearing this shirt but I'll say the fit is very athletic, or in other words pretty tight around the torso. Perhaps this is just a European thing to wear slim clothing (and I can understand how cool that looks) but I'm more used to wearing looser fit shirts although the Polartech fabric allowed the shirt to stretch without worry of tearing. The length also felt a little weird. The length was actually good but for whatever reason it just felt short.
The sleeves were just about perfect for length. My arms could move easily without restriction, shoulder pockets are easy to access, and a velcro opening for elbow pads that they sell separately (unfortunately I didn't buy them so shame on me). Some things that bothered me were the sleeve cuffs. You can work the cuffs two ways: buttoned or unbuttoned and rolled up. The sleeve cuffs do not offer any other adjustment options to how tight or loose it can be like most other combat shirts where those are adjusted by velcro. However I do like the idea of a sleeve that doesn't rip open (and loudly) when it snags onto something so the button is in a sense a nice "hard" set adjustment. Until 3rd Alternative updates the design of their combat shirts, I would recommend you contact them upon your order and ask them use a more versatile button adjustment like ones on the old BDU shirts (one button eyelet with multiple buttons) or use velcro.
The full zip front is very neat. While zippers are by no means flexible, this allows the shirt to be thrown on easily like a jacket and you can unzip the shirt beyond the 1/4 limitation you would get on other shirts. Maybe even unzip the bottom zipper if that's how you want to fly. This doesn't seem to restrict movement in any way nor bother me at this time.
While I think I sound too negative sometimes, I think this is still a very good shirt and very, very well priced. The staff at 3rd Alternative are professional in their communication and are active on social media. They seemed to have kindly taken note of my mini impressions video (here) which honestly seems half assed, so I went ahead and contacted them about getting another shirt but with size adjustments to the torso to better fit my preferences and use velcro for the sleeve cuffs. I also ordered a pair of pants which they also contacted me about for some features so we'll see and review those in due time when they finally come in through the COVID-19 shipping delays stacked on top of international shipping. I have great expectations and I am far from disappointed by their design and build quality as well as their customer service.
I still need to put more time at the range or hiking while wearing this shirt to form a real opinion so I will update this particular blog post as necessary at a later date.
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