Right now the clothes are for men, “just because of the economic challenges of making for men and women”. “When they buy, that’s when we go: ‘OK, we’ve nailed it.’” “People who are also building the future in their field,” says Steve. Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter, is a customer, as is Airbnb’s Joe Gebbia, film director Christopher Nolan and artist Olafur Eliasson. It is fireproof, windproof, most probably bear-proof too. Bear Grylls lives in his 100 Year hoodie (£395). “Pre the commercialisation of any new technology, it is inevitably expensive.”Īnyway, Musk can afford a Mars jacket, if he wants one. The prices reflect the materials and methods they use, says Nick. We look around and wonder: why is no one else designing for climate change, resource scarcity, space colonisation? The solar-charged jacket is £395, the Mars jacket £795. He’s into materials, and making stuff that lasts for 100 years out of rubbish. Nick is more intense – he is more about pictures and design. Steve does words and business – he fizzes and bubbles with enthusiasm, like Willy Wonka. “People around the world attacking stuff creatively, practically and with genuinely good principles.” An architect by training (Steve studied history of art) he mentions some of his heroes: Le Corbusier, Richard Rogers, Bjarke Ingels – as well as the designer Neri Oxman and the chef René Redzepi. “Because he’s looking into the future and designing solutions that he feels humanity is going to need in order to be able to survive.”Īh, here’s the other brother, Nick, undeniably identical but, helpfully, dressed differently, in Vollebak’s Garbage sweater – made of old firefighter suits and bulletproof vests, obviously. But he says they would like to chat to Musk about some stuff and admits he is an inspiration. Either Steve doesn’t know or he’s not telling. He shows me some of their other stuff: the Apocalypse jacket, built to withstand lava, and the space-dust-proof Mars jacket, which has a 3D printed “vomit pocket” in case you get a bit queasy up there. Space-dust-proof … the Mars jacket – complete with vomit pocket. “We look around and wonder why is no one else designing for this?” “It’s a crazy time – of climate change, resource scarcity, disease spreading around the world, space colonisation,” Steve says. Now they design clothes not so much for next season, more for next century. “It was a three-year, very elongated ‘piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing’.” “That sounds like we just went ‘ping’,” Steve says with a laugh. These challenges all led to products: a relaxation hoodie that zips up over your face (there are breathing holes), a range of incredibly lightweight clothes that dry really fast, a solar-charged jacket that can give off light when needed, and clothes made entirely from natural material that you can bury at the end of their life. “The challenges we faced were: how do you sleep well the night before you’re racing? If you’re about to die of heat exhaustion, can your clothes help? If your head torch runs out in the middle of the night, can your clothes help? When you’ve finished racing through the Amazon, what do you do with your clothes if they’re covered in faeces and ants?” If you’re about to die of heat exhaustion, or if your head torch runs out in the night, can your clothes help? And they ran ultramarathons that is how it began, thinking about how running clothes could be improved. Steve and Nick used to work in advertising. “At some point I’m going to be on my deathbed and I’m going to think: what did I do? Did I have fun? We try to do ideas that we’ll be proud of.” Steve says he and his brother didn’t think about uses, pointing out that when Benjamin Franklin witnessed an early hot air balloon flight in the 1770s and was asked what it was good for, he responded: “What good is a newborn baby?” They do things for fun, Steve says. Again, it’s only in infrared light, but I’m thinking that if you don’t want to be detected by one of those thermal imaging cameras police helicopters have, then a thermal camouflage jacket would be very handy. The next step is to scale down the size of the patches, so that an object can blend into more complex surroundings – a person in a forest, say. The key thing is that the graphene patches can be programmed individually, to emit different levels of thermal radiation, to blend in with the surroundings. Fireproof and windproof … the 100 Year hoodie, as worn by Bear Grylls.
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