If – in, say, one hundred years’ time – intelligent life from another universe finally makes it to our planet, it’s tempting to wonder what they will decide represents the apex of human ingenuity. Will it be, perhaps, the swirling architectural genius of China’s Tinjian library; the realisation that Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar perfectly captures the intergalactic politics between Saturn and Uranus; or might it, might it just be Vollebak’s 100 Year Pants?
The Solar Charged Jacket was nominated as one of Time’s Best Inventions of 2018.
For if ever there was a design company tilting towards the future, its Vollebak, founded three years ago by twin brothers, Nick and Steve Tidball, to create science and technology-enhanced clothing for the outdoor industry. Those 100 Year Pants are made, in the brothers’ own words, ‘from a material so tough it was originally built to enable the military to walk through fire’.
The Black Squid Jacket is created using more than 2 billion microscopic glass spheres.
Last year their Solar Charged Jacket – created from a light-responsive three-layer stretch fabric engineered with a phosphorescent compound – was nominated as one of Time’s Best Inventions of 2018. Their Black Squid Jacket has been created using lasers, resin and more than 2 billion microscopic glass spheres so that – like a squid – it can alternate between being subtly camouflaged or iridescently dazzling, according to its exposure to light.
Vollebak’s latest design, the 50,000BC Jacket.
Vollebak have just released their latest item of clothing – the 50,000BC Jacket – which combines architecture and clothing design to celebrate prehistoric man as ‘the greatest adventurer to ever live’. Part jacket, part man-cave, it gives a whole new meaning to timeless fashion.
If your aspirations remain more bionically inclined, there’s a substantial range of items on the website that will transform you into a cross between a cutting-edge explorer and a cyborg. Fiercely ingenious, and relentlessly experimental, this fashion is a calling card from a world we are yet to discover.
vollebak.com
