Fleece had a rough decade or so. It became synonymous with shapeless, pilling, vaguely corporate outdoorswear that belonged on a golf day and nowhere else. The technical fleece that has come back around is a different proposition entirely. Better construction, considered cuts, fabrics that actually regulate temperature rather than just adding bulk, and silhouettes that sit properly over a base layer or under a shell without turning you into a man wearing a sleeping bag. We have been specifically looking for pieces that work outside of the hills as well as on them. The kind of thing you can wear on a cold Saturday morning in the city without looking like you got lost on the way to a campsite. Grid fleeces, full zips with real collar structure, quarter zips that sit well with a collar underneath. These are the ones that earn the category name rather than trade on it. Technical means something here. It earns its place in the wardrobe.