Indestructible Utility Jacket

Name: Indestructible Utility Jacket. Original edition
Brand: Vollebak
SKU: JKT009BLKXSM
Price: 105 GBP
Availability: InStock

In 1880 the denim jacket was born. In 2020 we rebuilt it with the strongest fibre ever made.

£525 £105

Indestructible Utility Jacket. Original edition

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Model is 5ft 11 / 180cm with a 38 inch / 97cm chest, and wears size Medium.

Entire jacket made from 100% Dyneema® Black
Highly abrasion and rip resistant
Lightweight weighing 480 grams

140 years after the denim jacket was adopted by miners, cowboys and labourers, and more than 100 years after the first leather bomber jackets were created for WW1 pilots, we’ve built the Indestructible Utility Jacket out of the strongest fibre ever made. The material we’ve used is so tough it was originally used in body armour, anti-ballistic vehicle armour, mooring systems for giant container ships, and ropes used to tie down oil rigs in violent, icy seas. So when we went to build the toughest utility jacket ever created, there was only ever one material we could make it out of.

Every fibre on the Indestructible Utility Jacket is up to 15x stronger than steel. It comes with shatterproof buttons made from the world’s toughest nuts, hidden passport pockets, and a collar designed to work everywhere from a jungle to the city. Designed to double as a jacket or an overshirt, it’s built to become indispensable.

Technical Details

Entire jacket made from 100% Dyneema® Black

Outer body highly resistant to rips and abrasion

Fabric increases in strength the colder it gets

Shatterproof, heat resistant buttons made from corozo nuts

All buttons are anchored on their own heavy duty woven polyester military tape with reinforced stitching

2 invisible chest pockets with concealed zip entrances and secured with metal fasteners

2 open chest pockets

High double collar with reinforced zig zag stitching and 2 snap fasteners

62 metres of stitching with over 35,000 stitches in each jacket

Two-piece sleeves engineered for movement

Material made in Belgium

Cool wash max temp 30°C

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In 1880 the denim jacket was born. In 2020 we rebuilt it with the strongest fibre ever made.

A lightweight jacket designed for protection

Since the birth of the denim jacket in 1880, rugged and lightweight utility jackets have been used to protect people carrying out the toughest jobs in the toughest places. After denim became the default uniform for cowboys, miners and labourers, it was followed by the leather bomber jacket built for fighter pilots in open cockpits at 25,000ft. We’ve now taken the principle of a utility jacket – a rugged, long-lasting design that can be worn anywhere and for almost anything – and rebuilt it with the strongest material in the world.

Made from a material 15x stronger than steel

The Indestructible Utility Jacket is made from Dyneema® which is the single strongest fibre known to man today. If you’re into chemistry, it’s an ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene that combines extreme strength with very low weight. On a weight for weight basis Dyneema® is up to 15x stronger than steel and 40% stronger than high-strength aramid fibres. While it’s often used as a composite – an ingredient added to other materials to make them exceptionally strong – the entire jacket is made from 100% Dyneema®.

Why you find Dyneema® in survival situations

To understand just how tough Dyneema® is you have to look at how it’s being deployed in the world today. It’s used to make bullet resistant vests, armour and helmets. It’s used in panels on tanks to protect against stronger ballistic threats like anti-tank projectiles. And you’ll find it in bulletproof cockpit doors in most commercial planes in the US. Unlike other high-strength materials it’s so light it floats on water, and it’s resistant to the long-term effects of moisture, UV light and chemicals, which is why it’s now also being used in artificial limbs.
Dyneema® has tethered satellites and pulled up shipwrecks

Instead of using traditional jacket materials like denim or leather, we’ve built our jacket from the same material that was used to make the ropes that pulled up the Concordia cruise ship when it sank. It’s also the material that was used to create a 30km long tether designed to pull a capsule back down from space – despite reaching space it weighed just 5.5kg and only needed to be 0.5mm thick. And it’s the same material being used to create 1 centimetre thick tsunami barriers to stop 20 metre waves.
Why you probably haven’t heard of Dyneema® before

The reputations of materials are created over decades of exposure, heavy marketing spend, or moments in history like the Nylon riots in 1945 that created brand recognition overnight. Dyneema® has had none of these things. But there’s a difference between how well something performs and how well known it is, and sometimes the best things are secret. Whether it’s famous or not, this is currently the strongest fibre on Earth that you can build a piece of clothing out of.
Earth never reaches the melting point of Dyneema®

The melting point of Dyneema® is a subject of discussion online as it’s lower than the polyester used in most clothing today, and also the aramid fibres used in military gear. But to put it in context we’d have to return to the Hadean period of Earth around 4.5 billion years ago to find air temperatures that would melt it. The melting point of Dyneema® is around 130°C, which is 73 degrees above the hottest air temperature ever recorded on Earth of 56.7°C in Death Valley, California.

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The colder it gets the stronger it gets

The colder Dyneema® gets the stronger it gets, which is why it’s used to make the mooring lines on giant ships and deep-water oil rigs that have to perform in freezing seas. A mooring line on a winch buried under heavy ice on a ship sailing in extreme conditions simply mustn’t fail. As the temperature drops down to -50°C the Dyneema® ropes gain 5-10% strength. Projections show that the rope would gain even more strength if it dropped to -150°C. And it doesn’t just get stronger, it also loses no strength in relation to abrasion resistance or cutting.

What the jacket can survive

We wanted to create a jacket that could withstand the toughest places on Earth. Nature claws at you, hits you and freezes you. So 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. Dyneema® is so strong this jacket is almost impossible to rip. And blunt-force trauma will have almost no impact on it other than marking it.
What the jacket can’t survive

The short answer is it won’t survive bullets or the inside of a volcano. Yet. This is a jacket designed to perform in the toughest environments on Earth. But it is not built for extreme heat, so don’t fire a flamethrower at it. And we designed it for adventure not for warzones. So while this is the strongest Dyneema® ever used in a jacket, it won’t stop bullets. You need more layers of Dyneema® for that.

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How building an Indestructible Utility Jacket works

Designing and building a jacket that can survive anything you throw at it has to be an exercise in no expense spared craftsmanship. With materials starting their journey in a laboratory in Belgium, and with buttons starting their life inside a fruit, each jacket is then assembled in one of the most advanced factories in the world. Hundreds of separate construction processes, over 35,000 stitches, and more man hours than almost anything else in your wardrobe go into making this jacket a technical masterpiece.

The Indiana Jones of utility jackets

If you routinely happen to find yourself hacking through vegetation, falling down mineshafts, or jumping off moving motorbikes to take down bad guys, we’ve built the jacket for you. We replicated a 50kmph fall and drag on concrete and the jacket was fine. As well as being the strongest utility jacket ever built, it also looks like it’s walked off a Hollywood film set, so you look like you’ve made an effort even when you haven’t.

What the jacket feels like

The jacket feels like denim on a cold day. It’s soft and smooth to the touch, but you can still feel a light grain under your fingers. If you’ve ever come across ultra-lightweight Dyneema® used in backpacks you’ll know it feels and sounds a bit like paper. But the material we use is simply a different species. It’s called Dyneema® Black which is far stronger and far thicker because it’s spun then woven. And it had never been used for clothing before until we used it to build our Indestructible Puffer at the end of 2019.

Two secret passport pockets designed for hostile environments

On either side of the chest you’ll find two hidden pockets designed to hold things you might want to conceal in a hostile environment. With a hidden zip entrance, they’re each large enough to hold your passport, money, maps or documents without any danger of them falling out. Or they can also concertina out to fit a phone or GPS inside them. They have reinforced stitching so you won’t tear them if you’re rushing, and they can be double locked with a metal fastener. Built in front of each pocket are two open pockets for tools or gear.
An anti-mosquito and anti-bug collar

The collar can be worn in 4 different configurations. In jungle mode, you’ll want to use all the features of the collar – which means turned up high and fastened tight. It’s a reinforced double collar which means you can fold it right up to meet your hairline at the back and jawline at the front. This keeps the sun, wind or mosquitos off the back of your neck, and helps stop any bugs getting down your back.
The collar is built to hold its position

You’ll find two strong, lightweight and quiet snap fasteners that secure the collar in place. It creates a completely different shape to a standard collar as it double fastens across your throat to keep mosquitos or the elements out. Both poppers are attached with reinforced stitching. We’ve also used heavy duty zig zag stitching to strengthen the collar, so whether you’re wearing it up or down it will hold its shape in any conditions.
Impact-resistant buttons made from corozo nuts

Every button on the jacket starts life as a corozo nut buried inside the spiky fruit of the Tagua Palm trees found on the coastal mountain ranges of South America. Corozo is phenomenally strong so can be carved with stunning precision. It’s highly resistant to scratches, extreme temperatures and impact, so won’t crack or splinter. Made from 100% organic fibre, each button has a unique grain just like a fingerprint, so no two will ever be the same. And all buttons are sculpted with a highly polished 30° taper towards the edges to make them easy to slip into place.
Free-floating buttons anchored on military tape

Even the way the jacket buttons up has been engineered to withstand freezing fingers, sweating hands and hostile vegetation. Rather than being sewn onto the jacket, the buttons on the front have all been threaded onto a heavy duty woven tape that runs the jacket’s entire length. The tape is then stitched onto reinforced panels above and below each button. The construction allows the jacket to flex and withstand any tearing forces, as each button is free to slide 2 centimetres up and down its section of military tape.
Sleeves that stay rolled up in any condition

When you’re wearing it as an overshirt you can roll up the sleeves and they’ll stay rolled. Dyneema® Black has the same thickness as denim so the material is weighty enough to hold its position. The sleeves are engineered in the shape of a moving arm. And each sleeve fastens with a corozo nut button at the cuff.