Indestructible Utility Jacket

Name: Indestructible Utility Jacket
Brand: Vollebak
SKU: TPS051BLKXSM
Price: 1,195.00 CAD
Availability: InStock

The toughest utility jacket ever made, is now fleece-lined and waterproof.

$1,195

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Model is 6ft 2 / 189cm with a 40 inch / 101cm chest, and wears size Large.

Outside of the jacket made from 100% Dyneema® Black
Highly abrasion and rip resistant
Lined with ultrasoft Polartec fleece

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 toughest utility jacket ever created. Every fibre on the outside of the Indestructible Utility Jacket is up to 15x stronger than steel. The material we’ve used is so tough it was originally used in body armour, anti-ballistic vehicle armour, and ropes used to tie down oil rigs in violent, icy seas.

The fleece-lined edition of the Indestructible Utility Jacket is not just designed for pure strength. We’ve turned it into an all-season jacket by making the outside waterproof, and by lining the inside with soft Polartec fleece so you stay comfortable in any environment. The jacket is constructed with ultrastrong bonded thread, heavy-duty embossed metal buttons, and hidden passport pockets.

Technical Details

Outer material made in Belgium: 100% Dyneema® Black

Highly resistant to rips and abrasion

Body lining made in the US by Polartec: 100% polyester fleece (69% recycled)

Sleeves lined with cupro and compact synthetic insulation

Outer material is waterproof

Seam-sealing at shoulders, chest and back for waterproofness

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

2 open fleece-lined side pockets

Jacket fastens with embossed metal buttons

Brushed fleece-lined cuffs with 2 metal snap fasteners

Brushed fleece-lined collar with metal snap fastener

Jacket constructed with ultrastrong bonded thread

Jacket weighs 950 grams

Machine wash 30°C

Constructed in Romania

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The toughest utility jacket ever made

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. 140 years later we’ve built the toughest utility jacket ever created. Every fibre on the outside of the Indestructible Utility Jacket is up to 15x stronger than steel.

The fibre we’ve used is called Dyneema® Black. It’s so tough it started its life in body armour, anti-ballistic vehicle armour, and extreme strength ropes used to tie down oil rigs in violent, icy seas.

It’s now designed for all seasons

In 2020 we launched our first Indestructible Utility Jacket. And it remains the lightest high strength utility jacket in the world today. The fleece-lined edition of the Indestructible Jacket combines extreme strength with extreme practicality. We’ve bonded a waterproof membrane to the underside of the jacket and lined it with an ultrasoft fleece to turn it into an all-weather utility jacket.

How we’ve made Dyneema® Black waterproof

To build the latest version of our Indestructible Utility Jacket we’ve bonded a waterproof membrane to the underside of the Dyneema®. It’s this membrane that makes the world’s toughest material weatherproof. And it’s the first time this has been done. Constructed with millions of tiny pores, the membrane allows sweat to escape while keeping rain out. So even if you’re in a snowstorm or a downpour and the Dyneema® begins to absorb water, it can’t come through the membrane, so that’s where it stops. The jacket’s critical seams are reinforced with heavy-duty bonding for waterproofness.

The body of the jacket is lined with ultrasoft fleece

While the outside of the Indestructible Utility Jacket is designed for extreme strength, we’ve designed the inside for extreme comfort. The body is lined with an ultrasoft Polartec fleece that keeps you warm and comfortable in any weather.

An outer 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 outside of the 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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What the jacket feels like

Dyneema® Black 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’re built with reinforced stitching and can be double locked with a metal fastener.
Side pockets lined with soft fleece

There are two large open side pockets that let you tuck your hands in for warmth. They’re lined with moleskin, a densely woven, windproof brushed polyester known for its softness and comfort. The cuffs are lined with exactly the same material and fasten with two heavy-duty metal snaps.
The sleeves are lined with super compact insulation

Fleece-lining the arms of the jacket would make it bulky and impractical, so we’ve lined them with a layer of super compact insulation that we’ve used before in our ultralight running gear. Then next to your skin is a silk-like material made from cotton waste called cupro.

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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 can’t afford to 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.

Heavy-duty detailing protects you from the elements

The jacket fastens down the middle with six metal buttons with embossed Vollebak detailing, and protected by an external storm flap. At the top and bottom of the jacket you’ll find two heavy-duty metal snaps to secure the collar and hem in place. And in harsh weather you can flip the collar up to protect your neck. The outside of the collar is made from the same high-strength, weatherproof Dyneema® as the rest of the jacket, while the material next to your skin is soft moleskin.

Constructed with ultrastrong bonded thread

The entire jacket is constructed with an ultrastrong bonded polyester thread. Rather than being made from a single strand, bonded thread is made up of multiple intertwining strands which are sealed together with a coating and heat treatment. This creates a heavy-duty, high tensile strength thread normally only found in shoes and backpacks that’s resistant to fraying.

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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