Vollebak has announced a new spring jacket made of ultra-durable Dyneema fiber. Back in December, when the weather was getting colder by the day, we wrote a guide to buying a warm down jacket that included Vollebak’s first Dyneema jacket, the Indestructible Puffer. This material, otherwise known as ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, has strength qualities that rival steel, and is commonly used in bulletproof vests (though the jacket is not bulletproof, so don't get too ambitious.)
Vollebak claims on its website that it “replicated a 50 mph fall [from a motorcycle] […] on concrete and the jacket was fine.” So if you’re planning on getting into a street fight, or planning an escape from the city on an apocalypse-ready electric bike, this is probably the jacket you’re looking for. Even the buttons, which are made from corozo nuts, are super tough.
In a quote to Deezeen, Vollebak co-founder Steve Tidball said, "In our testing we exposed the jacket to the shearing, tearing, and blunt-force traumas that you'll get in the real world from rocks, ice, trees, and falls," and that “knife slash test shows what damage the sharpest rocks would be likely to inflict.”
The only jacket we know of that has a jungle mode.
Here’s the thing, Vollebak does not make apparel that comes cheap. The Indestructible Jacket comes in at an ironically wallet-destroying $645. But if you’re into luxury textiles, you can match the Indestructible Jacket with Hyperlite Mountain Gear’s Prism backpack, which is also made out of Dyneema. And then you can slide down a cliff-face with them safe in the knowledge they'll probably survive... even if you don't.
