Alien Hoodie

While the Alien Hoodie is designed as the ultimate relaxation hoodie for any visitors hanging out with us on Earth and finding it all a bit too much… it’s also suitable for humans who need a break too. The hoodie itself is a cross between our very first Relaxation Hoodies and our new Mars Hoodie. So it’s highly padded just like a bed, and comes with a big black visor, making it perfect for keeping your identity hidden, or escaping from the world for a few hours.

While most hoodies are built with a zipper that stops at your neck, the Alien Hoodie zips right up to the top of your head. Zipping up the hood on a long-haul flight is like hanging up a Do Not Disturb sign. Bright lights disappear, everything gets quieter, and people leave you alone. And while you can still see out through the mesh visor, no-one on the outside will be able to see in.

In 1954, neuroscientist JC Lilly invented the isolation tank while working at the National Institute for Mental Health. Floating in a dark, soundproof tank of warm salt-water was designed with the sole aim of isolating the brain from external stimulation. It’s a brilliant invention until you realise you can’t take it to any of the places you might need to relax. So the Alien Hoodie is built to cut out stimulus like an isolation tank – but you can take it anywhere.

We’ve been exploring how clothing can help you to relax in extreme environments since we started the company. Our first ever product was the Relaxation Hoodie – a portable isolation tank you could take anywhere. We followed it up with the Deep Sleep Cocoon, a self-contained microhabitat designed to help you sleep on the first missions to Mars. Next we launched the Mars Hoodie which was designed to help you feel like you’ve stayed in bed. The Alien Hoodie combines all three.

To make clothing this unusual requires an equally unusual machine. The reason the Alien 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.

The result 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.  

Sleep disturbance is a universal problem for people in extreme environments – from polar explorers and researchers, to astronauts on space shuttle flights and the ISS. The foundations of good sleep – like avoiding bright lights, creating routines, avoiding stress, getting enough exposure to sunlight early in the morning, and finding dark, quiet and cool places – can all quickly become impossible in extreme environments.

Everything about the Alien Hoodie has been built to keep you comfortable. 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 unzip the hoodie from the top and the bottom at the same time. And the hoodie is breathable, insulating and high-wicking.

Thanks to NASA’s pioneering work, we’ve spent the last 2 years recreating those dunes at 1:10,000 scale, and turning them into a sculpted 3D hoodie using computers and robots. Designed to mirror the shapes and textures of Mars, we turned the landscape into a padded, multidimensional fabric using 7 different-coloured yarns to create a colour that resembles TV interference or radar satellite imagery.

To build the Alien Hoodie we worked with Byborre – an experimental textile studio known for pushing the frontiers of material innovation, complex 3D-knitted fabrics, and a fully transparent supply chain. The Alien Hoodie is produced using 40% fewer greenhouse gases, 30% less water and almost 27% less power per kilogram than other conventionally made materials.

If you’re an alien interested in buying the hoodie, we obviously can’t be certain what form you’re going to take. If you’re anything like the giant heptapods in ‘Arrival’ this hoodie is clearly not going to work. But if you’re above 4 feet tall, with really big eyes, this hoodie is going to look great on you, and can probably double as a sleeping bag. For payment – assuming you may not be able to pay in any of our Earth currencies – we are willing to accept faster-than-light-speed craft, or anti-gravity technology.