A unit of thermal insulation used to measure how well clothing keeps you warm, where 1 clo equals the insulation of a typical business suit.
Coined in the 1940s by American clothing researchers as an acronym or shorthand, possibly from 'cloth.' It standardized how we talk about warmth in textile science and became the official unit in thermal comfort research.
Fashion and physics meet in this word: a down jacket might be 2-3 clo while a t-shirt is 0.1 clo, and scientists can actually predict how cold you'll be! It's the invisible measurement that makes winter gear work.
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