Hiking clothing is well designed for ... hiking. If you are hiking and you get lost then a hike turns into a survival situation and you hiking clothing is the best you could have because it is what you have. If you are in a high rise and it collapses then the business suit you are wearing is the best because it is what you have. <br><br>Make sure that most of your clothing is durable and that will cover you in most unexpected emergencies. Don't wear something that will rip when you force your way through a blackberry patch. Anything that can't handle that is decoration not clothing. <br><br>Clothing specially specially chosen and packed conveniently where you will use it during emergency situations that can be forseen by a few hours - floods, hurricanes, storms, fire and to some extent earthquake - can be more specifically chosen. I call this BOB clothes or evacuation clothes though it certainly covers those things stuffed in the back of the car that I will use if I need to make expedient repairs rather than get my business suit dirty. This category of clothing doesn't need to decorate but it may need to last under very harsh treatment. If you become involved in any rescue work after an earthquake your clothing will see worse treatment than the blackberry patch by far. BOB clothes also don't want to look military IMHO since there will likely be true military folks around and they don't appreciate the confusion. Some surplus works fine but I would suspect that Camo would cause some problem and un-earned insignia will definately offend. If you are evacuating from flood / fire / storm / wrekage from Quake then you will likely be housed in a substandard manner for a while. This means that staying warm and dry is paramount. Warm is more important than dry in the short to medium time frames but dry will be important also. Cotton will not keep you dry and if it gets wet it will very effectively cool you. In the summer in the southwest of the US or other similar climates this might be OK but even there the nights can become dangerously cool. Elsewhere cotton is an invitation to hypothermia. I prefer wool for the BOB, synthetics for hiking, wool/poly for dress suits and cotton for casual lounging where I have reasonable expectation that I will be able to change if I get wet. I will say that almost nothing feels more comfortable to me than a worn pair of jeans and a sweatshirt ( as long as they are dry).