This Color-Shifting Vollebak Jacket Is Made Out of 2 Billion Microscopic Glass Spheres
Outdoor brand Vollebak has already brought you such innovations as the carbon fiber T-shirt, the Kevlar hoodie, and the graphene jacket, and now they're back with yet another game-changing garment in the form of the Black Squid Jacket. Made using lasers to embed over two billion microscopic glass spheres into the resin on the jacket's surface, the outerwear changes colors when exposed to light, reflecting every shade in the visible spectrum.
Vollebak's new adventure jacket is named for the adaptive camouflage of the squid, which alters its color and appearance to hide, attack, and communicate. In duller light conditions, the Black Squid Jacket resembles metal or oil, as opposed to the vibrant spectrum that appears when it hits light.
“The Black Squid Jacket focuses on replicating the elements of squid skin that make it hyper-visible. While the squid uses microscopic plate-like structures on the surface of its skin to change color, our jacket uses disruptively-structured microscopic glass spheres,” explains Vollebak co-founder, Steve Tidball.
“With over two billion of them embedded in resin on the jacket’s surface, and over 40,000 in every single square centimeter, they’re invisible to the naked eye. When light hits the jacket, it travels through the curved surface of these black glass spheres and strikes the back of them, before being reflected back at the original light source and scattered away from it simultaneously, so that the fabric looks like it’s emitting light,” he adds.
The waterproof and windproof jacket features a three-layer fabric made from polyester, resin, and glass. It has merino lining on the collar and the back of neck, as well as an internal zipped phone pocket with headphone loops.
Priced at $995, you can purchase Vollebak's wild new Black Squid Jacket today.
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