Mars Hoodie

As we begin to explore new worlds millions of miles from our own planet, we need to think about clothing in new ways. So we’ve started working on chill-out gear for Mars that’s designed to help you feel at home, even if you’re 249 million miles away. To build the ultimate comfort hoodie we left normal clothing factories behind, and turned to the technology traditionally found in Scandinavian mattresses. Built by the same machines that build beds, the Mars Hoodie is the most comfortable hoodie ever made.

To make clothing this unusual requires an equally unusual machine. The reason the Mars Hoodie shares its DNA with bedding is because it’s been built on a monster circular knitting machine that stands over two metres tall. And it’s that tall because it uses the same techniques used to make mattresses. Sitting on top are eight yarn feeders. Each feeder can be programmed to knit a single pixel, or bit, within the textile. This means the textile can be engineered from the yarn up, giving complete control over the whole process. So we decided to recreate the polar dunes of Mars.

As you read these words here on Earth, 249 million miles away in Mars’ Jezero Crater, a little six-wheeled robot is busy looking for signs that the red planet was once home to life too. Head just another few thousand miles north past extinct supervolcanoes, thousand-mile-wide impact craters, and towering black sand dunes, and you reach the Corduroy Dunes – a desolate and truly alien landscape that’s part of a giant ring of sand dune fields surrounding Mars’ North Pole.

Thanks to their pioneering work we’ve taken the polar dunes of Mars, shrunk them down to 1:10,000 scale, then turned them into a sculpted 3D hoodie that’s programmed by computers and knitted by robots. Designed to mirror the shapes, colours and textures of the planet we’ll one day call home, we’ve turned the landscape into a padded, multidimensional fabric – then used that to create the ultimate chillout hoodie on any planet.

The Mars Hoodie is a double-layered, weighted, 3D-knitted hoodie created out of multi-dimensional fabric, and unlike anything on Earth. Its padded, sculptural texture comes from the unique way its layers are blended together. 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. It’s why the hoodie is covered in cratered sections and others that look like they’ve had air pumped into them. And it’s this patterned mattress-like effect that makes it feel like you’re climbing into bed when you put it on. 

As for the colour… while Mars has always looked red thanks to the dust storms that blow red-brown iron oxide dust and particles of red hematite into the atmosphere, the landscape itself isn’t that red at all. Made from volcanic glass and powdered basalt from eroded volcanoes, the Corduroy Dunes are a subtle blend of black, grey and tan. So we’ve engineered the hoodie with a weirdly hypnotic blend of black, grey and tan threads, which makes the hoodie look computer generated until you get up close to it.

You’ll find two large, zipped pockets on the outside of the Mars Hoodie. These are lined just like the rest of the hoodie, and you can either use them to hold your Personal Preference Kit, or just give yourself a hug. You’ll find two more pockets on each side of the inside of the hoodie, and we’ve kept these ones open for easy access.

Everything about the Mars Hoodie has been built to maximise comfort. So either side of the hood you’ll find elasticated drawcord adjusters to tighten it up. The hood is lined, just like the rest of the hoodie, so it’s soft against your face and skin. The cuffs and hem are bound and elasticated. The sleeves are shaped and darted for added articulation. The front zipper is heavy-duty and two-way so you can undo the hoodie from the top and the bottom at the same time. And the centre hood seam is taped internally with grosgrain and topstitched. The hoodie is also breathable, insulating and high-wicking.

However extreme the future becomes, at the end of a hard day you’re still going to want super comfortable clothes to relax in – it really doesn’t matter whether you’ve disappeared off grid on Earth, or you’re living on a base on Mars. And life on any early Martian base will be especially intense, as we’ll have to rebuild everything we take for granted here on Earth. It means downtime will be key. And that’s why we started working on a hoodie that’s designed to feel like you’ve stayed in bed.

The Mars Hoodie is what you’ll wear when you’re watching your favourite TV show from Earth on another planet. At least that’s the brief we started with. Because not everything in space will need to be crazily high tech. 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. 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.

Over the last 5 years we’ve been exploring the realities of life in space, and how clothing can start to solve some of the challenges we’ll face. From our Deep Sleep Cocoon that’s a cross between an exoskeleton and a spacesuit, to our Mars Jacket and Pants that come with 3D printed vomit pockets to tackle space adaptation syndrome, to our Martian Aerogel Jacket which is built from the same advanced aerogel and parachutes that land Rovers on Mars. With the Mars Hoodie we’re working on the idea of ‘how do you feel at home on another planet?’