Vollebak’s newest hat can protect you from all elements forever

One aspect of ethical fashion, aside from how clothes are made, is also the sustainability of the clothing item itself. This means that the item should be long lasting so you don’t need to constantly change or update the pieces, therefore making you consume less. Vollebak is one such brand that prides itself in long lasting and “future-proof” fashion, coming up with pieces that are not just sustainably made but can last you years or maybe even forever. Their newest item is called the Planet Earth Hat V2 and it is headwear for all seasons, literally.

Designer: Vollebak

The hat is aptly named as it is able to be one with the planet when it comes to sustainable clothing as well as protect you from all the harsh elements you may encounter when traveling or going on adventures. The design is based on the boonie hat that military personnel wear but it has been enhanced with materials that can fit you whether you’re going to the jungle, desert, mountain, beach, trail, or maybe even just walking around the city. It is water repellent, fire resistant, quick drying, and is able to give you UPF 30+ UV-A, and UV-B protection.

It is made from 47% Kanecaron, a Japanese modacrylic fiber that is able to withstand fire and is also self-extinguishing. It is then woven with ultra thin carbon fibre filaments so that it gets an advanced ripstop to make the hat stronger. It also comes with a sunshield to protect your neck but in case you don’t need it, you can remove it easily and then re-attach it when needed as it uses military grade Velcro. There are also 36 vents built in and a soft, breathable mesh inside the lining so you get at least a bit of cooling feeling when in hot and humid weather.

The Planet Earth hat is probably not something you’ll need for every day use, unless you trek through deserts and other places with extreme weather regularly. But it is something that you should definitely have, especially if you believe in Vollebak’s philosophy and you’ve also tried out some of their other pieces of futuristic and future-proof clothing like jackets, pants, belts, and other hats. If you want something that will last you maybe forever and you have almost $400 to spare, then you can check it out.

The post Vollebak’s newest hat can protect you from all elements forever first appeared on Yanko Design.

Vollebak’s Indestructible Hoodie Is Practically Armor

Vollebak has a knack for inventing apparel designed for adventurers. If you weren’t impressed by its Solar Charged Hat, just wait until you see the British fashion company’s newest innovation: the Indestructible Hoodie. It’s easy to poke fun at any item being called “Indestructible” by its designer, but there’s a good reason to believe Vollebak’s claim it can withstand “75kmph falls”. In fact, you might just find yourself shelling out for its fashionable, comfortable, yet weather-impervious outer shell.

The materials used in the Indestructible Hoodie’s high-durability design — Cordura and Dyneema — don’t come cheap, however, and the cost of a new Indestructible Hoodie from Vollebak’s web store is a whopping $795. Granted, that’s more than worth the value of peace of mind when heading straight into danger. Like many of Vollebak’s unique fits, this hoodie looks like it was made for extreme athletes with a need for serious protection. Vollebak advertises it as being “highly abrasion and rip resistant,” even so far as being able to mitigate damage caused by an “extreme 4 way stretch,” which, to be fair, I would prefer not to imagine in gritty detail. On a side note, it’s probably fantastic protective-wear for anyone working in construction, or in other potentially dangerous manual labor fields. And, heck, it even looks pretty slick.

Designer: Nick Tidball, Steve Tidball (via Vollebak)

Vollebak did some pretty wild stuff to ensure it’s exactly as durable as it claims to be, using something called the Darmstadt abrasion resistance test to assess its durability during high speed falls onto concrete. This involved testing the hoodie’s fabric in a rotating machine that dragged samples of its Cordura (Nylon) material across 30 meters. Apparently, Vollebak’s designers needed to rev the machine up to 412rpm to make a small hole in one sample. According to Vollebak, it was “not a subtle test”.

Coming in two colorways, either Yellow or Black, the Indestructible Hoodie is designed for a comfortable and neat fit. Not only does it contain two side pockets for storage, it’s also wind-resistant to keep you protected from the cold. When it gets a bit warmer, this design is lightweight and breathable as well.

All that breathability is great because there’s plenty of flexibility between the Indestructible Hoodie’s smallest and the largest sizes; the smallest (XS) jacket is rated to flex between 33-36 inch chest sizes and 28-30 inch waist sizes, while the largest (XXXL) is rated to flex between 51-54 inch chest sizes and 40-42 inch waist sizes. That means you’re likely to find one that’s right for your body type, making it a versatile piece of apparel throughout the year for any explorer, adventurer, or high-stakes contractor in need of a bit of fashionable armor.

The post Vollebak’s Indestructible Hoodie Is Practically Armor first appeared on Yanko Design.

Vollebak’s New Solar Charged Hat Is Perfect for Spelunking

Vollebak is back, yet again, with a new piece of solar-charged apparel. Its new Solar Charged Hat looks exactly as comfortable as it is sustainably-designed, being that it’s made up of three layers of material insulating the head of whoever wears it. Plus, it’s covered in “membranes” that absorb light (like plants!) to power its biggest feature: it glows brightly in the dark wherever you “draw” light, meaning you can use it as an artist’s easel with a flashlight. But more importantly, you can store and communicate brightly-lit messages on the hat’s fabric.

Even without that, it’s a very nice glow-in-the-dark winter hat meant to pair with Vollebak’s other solar-powered apparel, like the Solar Charged Puffer. The expensive and intricate photovoltaic outer layer is cool-looking, and probably quite useful if you need all the light you can get, but it does come with a $395 price tag. According to Vollebak, it’s made for “the coldest, darkest places on Earth,” and if you’re going to those places anyway, you probably won’t mind spending on potentially life-saving functionality and maybe a little extra peace of mind.

Designer: Vollebak

It’s built for durability, using a wind and water-resistant three-layered material made of a Nylon mesh, ripstop, and the photovoltaic membrane that makes it solar-powered. The sides of the cap contain ultra-soft fleece lining and insulation. What stands out here is the Nylon used in the cap: Cordura, a reinforced material generally used in military-grade gear. Apparently, the ripstop layer is made of the same materials “found in parachutes”. And from that single revelation alone, if anything is certain, this is the hat you’d probably want on an expedition to Antarctica.

The kryptonite green color may be a bit too bright for high fashion; this Solar Charged Hat is definitely a piece of adventuring garb through and through, and — again if you’re in the freezing cold — it even comfortably fastens with a three-tightness chin fastener, giving you additional  warmth from the cold when needed. Of course, it doesn’t glow green all the time. When you go somewhere with a lot of natural light, as Vollebak puts it, “it’s a normal green during the day”.

It’s not just sustainable in the sense of storing energy from light. It’s also solved one of the biggest problems in sourcing insulation components: avoiding animal cruelty.

“Made from 100% recycled plastic bottles the engineered microfibres are so light and puffy that they trap enough heat next round your head to recreate the warmth of real down, without needing to pull feathers out of ducks or geese. And while down will clump and stop insulating if it gets wet, the synthetic fibres will continue keeping you warm even in damp conditions.”

The post Vollebak’s New Solar Charged Hat Is Perfect for Spelunking first appeared on Yanko Design.

Meet The Strongest Belt Ever Made – The Indestructible Belt By Vollebak

Vollebak is known for its ground-breaking and absolutely mindblowing designs such as the Indestructible Puffer which is built from the same material as body armor or the Deep Sleep Cocoon that can lull you to sleep on Mars and Earth! In lieu of their ingenious and highly successful designs, Vollebak has also launched the Indestructible Belt. Right off the bat, they’re claiming that the Indestructible Belt is the strongest belt ever made! Color us intrigued! It is designed to be not only a true marvel in engineering but also a major fashion statement that will definitely grab eyeballs.

Designer: Vollebak

The Indestructible Belt is built with the ultimate strong core which is made from Dyneema – the single strongest fiber known to man today. Vollebak uses Dyneema in its Indestructible range. Dyneema is supposed to be 15x stronger than steel, which basically signifies that the belt strap is only breakable if you hang more than 4 tonnes of it, which is essentially the same weight as a Hummer or 10 grizzly bears. It is a game-changer for people who need their belts to be extremely durable and strong, but also dashingly handsome.

Vollebak teamed up the powerful Dyneema strap with a COBRA® buckle which is supposed to be the strongest and safest buckle on the planet. The buckle is engineered with a patented locking mechanism, ensuring that the buckle never releases under pressure, and can tolerate 1.8 tonnes of force before it breaks apart. Every Indestructible Belt is built using 12 rows of ultra-strong bonded thread, and an engraved metal tip by Riri which features a custom anodized metal case equipped with a 3D printed latch – making it a class apart from your ordinary everyday belt, to be honest, the two cannot even be compared. The Indestructible Belt is designed to withstand the harshest of conditions!

The Indestructible Belt is crafted in France, and it completely pushes the boundaries of fashion and functionality, to create an exceedingly innovative product that we have truly never seen before. It is priced at $395 and is the ultimate accessory you have been looking for. It packs a punch with both style and safety.

The post Meet The Strongest Belt Ever Made – The Indestructible Belt By Vollebak first appeared on Yanko Design.

Aerogel-embedded puffer jacket by Vollebak creates an ultralight insulation that protects you from -30°C cold

As someone who has lived in a tropical country all her life, I have no concept of what it means to be really, really cold. Sure, I’ve been to countries where I need to wear thick jackets but I’ve never experienced negative degree weather and have not been able to appreciate jackets that can keep you warm and protect you from freezing weather. Down is one of the most popular materials for these kinds of jackets but it’s not really friendly to animals. So a puffer jacket that uses better materials is always welcome.

Designer: Vollebak

The Aerogel Puffer is made from the lightest solid material in the world which is actually used to line spacesuits and insulate electronics. Aerogel has individual neoprenes that are 10,000 thinner than human hair so it is also pretty lightweight and air will not be able to pass through it. The jacket itself has advanced synthetic insulation and its outer shell uses the ultra lightweight yarn so that you’ll be protected from extreme cold weather (even -30 degrees!) but it also won’t weigh you down totally. The insulation fibers and the aerogel trap the air pockets to your body and is also the thermal barrier you’ll need to protect you from the cold air.

The woven yarns used in the jacket (which weighs under 1 gram for 1 kilometer) has a finishing called circe which actually serves as a seal so that weather elements like wind, snow, and light rain will not be able to go through. It also means that your body heat and the insulation it creates will not be able to get out, so you remain warm and snuggly when experiencing some slightly unpleasant weather. You get five zipped pockets, two large ones on the side to keep your hands warm and the others to hold your stuff like phone, wallet, keys, etc.

The Aerogel Puffer looks like most other puffer jackets but it’s supposedly lighter than the ones made from down. The ultralight water-repellant and windproof jacket has a regular fit and is available in various sizes from extra small to double extra large. It’s available in a black edition and a white one. If ever I would be staying somewhere that is really, really cold, this can be an interesting accessory to have, especially when I’m not used to actual cold weather (and I want to protect the ducks).

The post Aerogel-embedded puffer jacket by Vollebak creates an ultralight insulation that protects you from -30°C cold first appeared on Yanko Design.

Vollebak’s Mars Hoodie was inspired by a mattress, so you can feel comfortable even on the red planet

Dubbed the Mars Hoodie, Vollebak’s latest garment was designed to make you feel at home even when you’re 249 million miles away from home.

“Life on any early Martian base will be intense – as we’ll have to rebuild everything we take for granted here on Earth. It means downtime will be key”, mention Nick and Steve Tidball, founders at Vollebak, a garment company that prides itself in weaving fashion and innovation together. “Built by the same machines that build beds, the Mars Hoodie is the ultimate comfort hoodie – it’s what you’ll wear when you’re watching your favorite TV show from Earth on another planet.”

Designer: Vollebak

Life on Mars probably won’t be as flashy as Elon Musk has us believe. We’ll literally be setting up a new civilization there, and with that kind of hard work, a nice comfortable bed is more likely to be what you want than a jetpack or exoskeleton. Keeping in mind the reality of the kind of rigorous work civilization-building will entail, Vollebak’s Mars Hoodie is just built for comfort and stress-relief. Almost like having a weighted blanket or mattress wrapped around you, this 3D-knitted hoodie comes with a tactile surface that’s inspired by Mars’ cratered landscape, the cooling system on space-suits, and the inflatable houses you’ll probably be living in for the first couple of generations.

“Most of the time astronauts on the International Space Station float about in t-shirts and khakis. Which means we’re going to need clothes to help us relax on Mars too”, Vollebak points out. “It won’t all need to come with state-of-the-art robotics, built-in life support systems, or heads-up gold visors to block out the sun’s rays. We’ll need loungewear too.”

The Mars Hoodie is a double-layered, weighted, 3D-knitted hoodie created out of multi-dimensional fabric, employing a technology currently used to make beds. The machine stands at a whopping 2 meters tall, with eight yarn feeders that can be individually programmed to knit a single pixel or bit, within the textile. During the knitting process, the area between the upper and lower layer is pushed full of yarn and allowed to expand, giving it its custom puffy 3D appearance. In short, the machine is capable of weaving the jacket out of fibers and stuffing it with the same fibers simultaneously.

The Mars Hoodie, available in either white or black, is made from 50% recycled nylon and 50% virgin nylon.  It’s also embedded with anti-bacterial silver microparticles. These kill germs, bacteria, and odors and will prolong the life of your hoodie. “Because you don’t really want bacteria floating about in space. That never ends well in the movies”, the Tidball brothers mention casually.

The hoodie’s puffed-up design feels almost like having a duvet wrapped around you. Several studies have shown that using a weighted blanket can help reduce stress and improve the quality of sleep – a feature that the Mars Hoodie wears proudly on its sleeve. A heavy-duty zipper and drawcords around the hood help you tightly secure your garment on your person, while a soft inner lining helps you feel comfortable over long periods of time. You’ll find two large, zipped pockets on the outside of the Mars Hoodie, which you can use either to store belongings or dig your hands into on a cold day. Wondering what to do on warm days? Well, the hoodie is also breathable and wicks moisture beautifully, making it quite literally perfect for wearing every day on Mars, the ISS, or heck, even on Earth.

The post Vollebak’s Mars Hoodie was inspired by a mattress, so you can feel comfortable even on the red planet first appeared on Yanko Design.

This shirt was made from the same fabric used by Egyptians to wrap mummies… and it’ll last decades

If you ever looked at a nettle (those plants that give you a nasty sting) and thought – hey, this could make a great fabric for clothing people, chances are you’re either Egyptian, or you’re someone at Vollebak. The London-based alternative clothing brand is known for working with kinds of materials that you’d never find at your local GAP or Forever 21. After having somehow integrated materials like ceramics, carbon fiber, kevlar, and even Dyneema into their clothes, the company’s now managed to find a way to turn the hostile nettle into a soothing, comfortable fabric that you can wear for decades… centuries even. Although they weren’t the first.

Five thousand years ago, the Egyptians developed a method to turn the nettle into fibers that could be woven into a durable, comfortable fabric that resists heat and humidity well. They used the same fabric to wrap their mummies, and those threads lasted 5 millennia so there’s no reason Vollebak’s shirt won’t. The fabric, now commonly known as ‘ramie’ is now mostly seen being used to build parachutes… and it’s the primary fabric used in Vollebak’s Off Grid shirt.

Designer: Vollebak

The Off Grid shirt, as its name suggests, was built to live off the grid. It uses materials that existed long before the grid was even a fleeting thought, which works because these shirts were built to withstand ‘unconventional living’…

The Off Grid shirt works rather well in heat and humidity, and just by virtue of its fabric, has these unique wrinkles on the shirt that contribute to its character. The shirt uses a proprietary blend of ramie (nettle fabric) and Pima cotton. As a fiber, ramie is incredibly resistant to bacteria and mildew, and unlike other fibers, grows stronger with time (it’s no wonder the mummies look so good, eh?) Pima cotton, on the other hand, gives the shirt its softness and keeps it light. The blend of cotton also wicks moisture rather well and dries off pretty fast, making it perfect for humidity.

Vollebak doesn’t stop there, though. The shirts, once stitched, are dyed with either leftover Japanese turnips, or with blueberries. “The Turnip edition is dyed using red turnips from the Japanese mountain town of Kiso. Despite their red outer skin, the turnips have white flesh which produces a light-colored dye,” say Nick and Steve Tidball, the twin founders of Vollebak. “The turnips we use are excess ones left over from the production of sunki pickles. Rather than let them go to waste we use them to make 90% of the dye for the shirt”, they add.

While the off-white variant of the Off Grid shirt uses turnips, its slightly darker, almost mauve-colored sibling uses unwanted blueberries from a Japanese fruit farm in the Nara prefecture. “Some blueberries don’t make the cut during harvesting because they’re damaged or oddly shaped. So rather than let them go to waste we use them to make 90% of the dye for the shirt”, Steve and Nick mention.

Once woven and dyed, the shirts are finished using Ōmi sarashi, an ancient Japanese kneading technique that helps make the fabric soft yet rugged, and gives them their signature wrinkled pattern. Steve and Nick don’t quite mention how long the Off Grid shirt is supposed to last, but given their track record of making garments that can last well over a hundred years, it’s fair to assume these shirts should easily be in your wardrobe for the rest of your life!

Each Off Grid shirt comes with two large chest pockets for carrying your belongings in.

The post This shirt was made from the same fabric used by Egyptians to wrap mummies… and it’ll last decades first appeared on Yanko Design.

This jacket designed to survive an apocalypse is made of the same material used to coat the Apollo Mission spacecraft!

The Apocalypse Jacket from Vollebak combines polybenzimidazole, para-aramid, and antistatic to create a jacket that’s built to face the threat of global catastrophe.

Surviving an apocalypse could mean anything these days. Whether we picture zombies chasing us down suburban streets or even retreating to our bunkers as asteroids pelt the planet, our survival depends on our doomsday preparation. But how can we be prepared for the end of the world as we know it?

Designer: Vollebak

Click Here to Buy Now!

Vollebak, a clothing company rooted in science and technology, finds promise in fashion. Launching items like the world’s first Solar-Charged Jacket and even a pair of sweatpants designed to last a lifetime, Vollebak is back with their Apocalypse Jacket. Founded by two brothers, Nick and Steve Tidball, Vollebak uses science and technology to design clothes from the future, for the future.

Built to face the threat of global catastrophe, Vollebak’s Apocalypse Jacket is composed of a fabric that was originally invented by Dr. Marvel, a scientist called on by the Department of Defense to invent a fiber with no melting point. In the face of the Cold War and the Apollo program, Dr. Marvel found that polybenzimidazole (PBI), could offer exceptional thermal and chemical stability.

Used to coat the spacecraft that landed the first humans on the moon in 1972, “PBI retains its integrity after it is exposed to high heat, chemicals, and abrasion – it won’t stiffen and crack, unlike other fire-retardant materials,” as Vollebak puts it. Withstanding temperatures of at least 2,370°F, the Apocalypse Jacket can even survive the same temperature of black lava.

Since its initial development in 1961, PBI has continued to offer the highest tensile strength available in fabrics even when compared with firefighter uniforms. Five times as strong as firefighter uniforms, PBI isn’t the only aspect of the Apocalypse Jacket that will help us survive doomsday.

Lined with 23 pockets, Vollebak designed the Apocalypse Jacket in the likely chance that you’ll have to ditch your survival kit and backpack. Chemical-resistant, fireproof, water-repellent, and almost impossible to tear, the Apocalypse Jacket is built to survive.

With Vollebak’s Apocalypse Jacket, 23 pockets offer plenty of storage space on the run. 

Even in the face of fire, nuclear waste, and human-eating zombies, the Apocalypse Jacket is built to survive. 

Storing most of your personnel in the 23 lined pockets, all you’ll have to carry is your zombie-killing weapons. 

The interior pockets allow you to keep all your Doomsday essentials on you at all times. 

The post This jacket designed to survive an apocalypse is made of the same material used to coat the Apollo Mission spacecraft! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Finally tear-resistant, ballistic nylon clothes designed to use for the SpaceX journey to Mars!

There are few clothing brands that really match the design and innovation in fashion that Vollebak has managed in the last six odd years. The British clothing brand has previously left us in awe with a jacket fashioned to improve the sleep cycle of astronauts, and it is now tapping into the extraterrestrial void with the all-new Mars gear.

Combining the aspects it loves: Vollebak has designed Mars Jacket and Pants for the voyage to the red planet. It is fashioned with the unrelenting adoration for space exploration and crazy material science to solve a problem that is coming in the next few years. So, as the human race prepares itself to colonize Mars, Vollebak has clothing ready for engineers, architects, scientists and explorers who will be heading into space when the time is right. Until then, the jacket and pants are just apt for your next clubbing night back on Earth.

Vollebak, co-founded by twins Nick and Steve Tidball, has been creating clothes for the future and this intergalactic set of jackets and pants is only an extension of that intent. The gear is made from a tear-resistant, ballistic nylon outer shell but it’s absolutely soft and snug and is provided in two: gray and cream colors. Since the clothing is designed to venture to the next planet, it includes anti-gravity pockets to counter the shifting gravitational fields. Realizing that earthlings may experience nausea in their interplanetary voyage, the Mars gear is equipped with a 3D-printed vomit pocket on the chest, which features a removable and cleanable orange PVC vomit bag, should you need it.

Envisioned to facilitate the wearer when they are space-bound for the Moon or Mars eventually, the suit is almost fashionable for Earth-bound adventures too. If you think so, Vollebak Mars gear is available in six sizes from XS to XXL on the company’s website for $995.

Designer: Vollebak

Click Here to Buy Now!

The post Finally tear-resistant, ballistic nylon clothes designed to use for the SpaceX journey to Mars! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This black algae dyed t-shirt is Vollebak’s latest creation designed to suck carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere!

Vollebak grows black algae in giant ponds located in California, which is collected and heat-treated to concentrate it into a black powder to be used as a pigment for dye.

Every day, we wear clothes without knowing how they’re made. Unless you’re already buying clothes from sustainable brands, most of the clothing we wear is produced from material that isn’t harvested responsibly, let alone biodegradable. Take the color black–our favorite everyday black t-shirts are colored by a pigment derived from petroleum called carbon black. However, Vollebak, a clothing brand that uses technology to produce sustainable t-shirts and bottoms, aims to reinvent the way that the color black is made.

Carbon black is a color pigment that’s used to dye our clothing black. After large plots of land called tar sands are stripped of all pre-existing vegetation and animal life, carbon black is extracted from the petroleum stored underground. Noticing the unsustainable practices of producing black clothing, Vollebak discovered that you don’t have to dig up any earth to access black algae.

Known for growing in ponds, black algae only needs sunlight and carbon dioxide to flourish. Having abundant access to a natural black pigment, Vollebak used material technology to collect and use black algae to dye their t-shirts black. The result? The Black Algae T-Shirt feels and looks just like a conventionally dyed t-shirt.

Each t-shirt from Vollebak is made from eucalyptus trees that are harvested from sustainably managed forests. Once the pulp from eucalyptus trees gets spun into a wearable fabric, each t-shirt is dyed with black algae ink, which continues to lock in the carbon dioxide it absorbed while still alive. In order to lock the carbon dioxide into the shirt for up to 100 years, Vollebak uses carbon capture technology to trap carbon dioxide at its emission source.

After harvesting black algae from their ponds, Vollebak puts the algae through a heat treatment that concentrates it into powder form. “The black algae ink has been engineered to be UV resistant so it will hold its color for years. But since this is a bio-based ink it won’t behave exactly like a petroleum-based ink. Over time the black color may brighten around the edges next to the seams. To make the algae last for as long as possible we recommend hand washing the t-shirt in cold water with as little detergent as possible.”

The T-shirts themselves are produced from eucalyptus trees that are harvested from sustainably managed forests. “The rest of the t-shirt is made from wood pulp from sustainably managed forests. Eucalyptus, beech, spruce are chipped and pulped, before being turned into fiber, then yarn, and finally fabric. All the wood is harvested from sustainable forestry plantations and certified by both the Forestry Sustainability Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). Representing over 700 million acres of certified forests, the PEFC is the largest forest certification system in the world.” Instead of dyeing the shirt’s individual fibers black, Vollebak dyes the entire outer surface of their shirts in black algae ink, which is why the final color of each t-shirt is more of a very dark grey marl.

Since all the materials used to produce their Black Algae T-shirt, the shirt can biodegrade in about 12 weeks. Once the material has disappeared just the black algae ink will remain in an almost imperceptible, safe and non-toxic state. And while other organic materials release carbon dioxide when they decompose, this ink will continue storing its carbon for over 100 years.

Designer: Vollebak

Click Here to Buy Now!

Engineered to be UV-resistant, the t-shirt will hold its color for years.

“The wood is turned into [the] fabric using an environmentally responsible and closed-loop production process. In practice, this means that over 99% of the water and solvent used to turn pulp into fiber is recycled and reused.”

Since its not petroleum-based ink, the black algae ink dye will brighten near the t-shirt’s seams and edges.