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Carbon Fibre + Dyneema® Shell

Name: Carbon Fibre + Dyneema® Shell
Brand: Vollebak
SKU: JKT088BLKXSM
Price: 695.00 GBP
Availability: OutOfStock

A super strong, super light, super stretchy shell engineered like a composite material.

CHF 695

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

Reinforced with Dyneema® and carbon fibre
Lightweight, water repellent and breathable
Extreme four-way stretch
Highly abrasion resistant
Invisible zipped pockets and hidden cuff adjusters

Most high-performance shells are built around a trade-off. You can have something light. Or stretchy. Or tough. Maybe you can have two at the same time. But pushing all three at once is where materials science gets complicated and people give up. We didn’t.

We started where aerospace engineers and advanced automotive designers do, with composite thinking. Instead of relying on a single “miracle fabric”, we engineered a stretch shell built from two radically different high-performance fibres, woven together to create something you don’t normally find in clothing.

Woven horizontally throughout the shell are thousands of white strands of Dyneema®, which is up to 15x stronger than steel. And woven vertically are thousands of black strands of carbon fibre, which is normally used to reinforce components in missiles, jet engines and the world’s fastest cars. Definitely not jackets. We then added a serious amount of elastane, matching super strength with super stretch.

All that material science means this shell can stretch in any direction simultaneously, while withstanding the same stress tests as our 100 Year gear. It’s the strongest lightweight, stretchy shell jacket we’ve ever attempted.

Technical details

Material made in Italy: 68% polyamide, 26% elastane, 5% Dyneema®, 1% carbon fibre

Dyneema® and carbon fibre ripstop weave

Extreme four-way stretch

Water repellent

Breathable

Highly abrasion resistant

Invisible side pockets with concealed zippers

Raglan sleeve construction

Hidden snap fastener cuff adjusters

Elasticated drawcord at hem

Fully lined with 86% Cordura, 14% elastane material

Material weighs 180g/m²

Jacket weighs 500gms

Machine wash 30°C

Constructed in China

Material made in Italy: 68% polyamide, 26% elastane, 5% Dyneema®, 1% carbon fibre

Dyneema® and carbon fibre ripstop weave

Extreme four-way stretch

Water repellent

Breathable

Highly abrasion resistant

Invisible side pockets with concealed zippers

Raglan sleeve construction

Hidden snap fastener cuff adjusters

Elasticated drawcord at hem

Fully lined with 86% Cordura, 14% elastane material

Material weighs 180g/m²

Jacket weighs 500gms

Machine wash 30°C

Constructed in China

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Super light. Super stretchy. Super tough

To make the Carbon Fibre + Dyneema® Shell we weave thousands of strands of two super materials directly into a lightweight base material of nylon and elastane. The Dyneema®, which is up to 15x stronger than steel, is woven horizontally. And the carbon fibre, normally used to reinforce components in missiles, jet engines and the world’s fastest cars, is woven vertically. Together they create a high-strength, highly elastic ripstop material.

We’ve matched carbon fibre with Dyneema® the strongest lightweight, stretchy shells ever attempted.

High-performance shell woven with Dyneema® and carbon fibre

Over the last few years we’ve made extraordinarily tough things, like our Indestructible Hoodie that’s just 1 millimetre thick but can withstand a 75kmph fall and drag on concrete. And we’ve made extraordinarily light things, like our 100 gram Graphene T Shirt. But the Carbon Fibre + Dyneema® Shell is both super strong and super light and takes us closer to building bulletproof materials just a couple of microns thick.

A high-strength grid of Dyneema® and carbon fibre runs through every square centimetre of the shell.

Highly abrasion resistant

Adding carbon fibre and Dyneema® to the nylon base material creates a super strength ripstop with extreme levels of abrasion resistance. The material withstands the same abrasion testing standards as our toughest 100 Year gear. Not only does this protect you and the shell from friction caused by impacts with rocks, trees and dirt, but it also makes it durable against regular wear and tear over time.

A design that gets the most out of the material

The design is deliberately stripped back so the material can do the work. Invisible zipped side pockets are integrated cleanly into the body. Raglan sleeves reduce seam stress and improve freedom of movement. Hidden snap fasteners at the cuffs allow you to seal out wind without visual clutter. And an internal drawcord at the hem lets you cinch the jacket close to the body when conditions change.

Water repellent, breathable and built for comfort

While the composite fabric we’ve developed has super strength and super stretch, it’s still breathable, helping moisture vapour escape as you move. It’s finished with a water-repellent treatment so light rain beads on the surface and rolls away. And even the jacket’s lining is built with a super advanced material. It is 86% Cordura, a material made of nylon fibres treated with a process called air jet texturing that strengthens every fibre. They are then tightly woven, creating a high-tenacity textile that’s resistant to abrasion and rips, and built to last.

We’ve wrapped spirals of carbon fibre and Dyneema®, essentially high-tensile springs, around an elastane core.

The shell has a micro check pattern

While lots of the technology we use in our clothing is invisible to the naked eye, this time it’s really easy to see. The grid of white Dyneema® strands, and black carbon fibre strands, gives the shell a micro check pattern up close. From a distance it reads as a clean, technical grey, making it easy to wear as an everyday outer layer. The grid also rises slightly out of the surface, giving the shell a subtle textured feel.

The Dyneema® and carbon fibre work like high-strength springs

To weave the Dyneema® and carbon fibre into fabric we start by engineering them into spirals, before wrapping them around an elastane core. Together they work like high-strength springs, expanding and compressing as the shell stretches and moves. This increases the shell’s stress resistance and tensile strength, which is the force needed to break fibres when they’re pulled in opposite directions.

Dyneema® is up to 15x stronger than steel

Dyneema® 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. Weight for weight Dyneema® is up to 15x stronger than steel. Which is why it’s used to make bulletproof vests, anti-ballistic vehicle armour for tanks, and the ropes used to tie down giant ships and deep-water oil rigs in violent, icy seas.

It’s the atomic structure that makes carbon fibre so strong

A single carbon fibre is a long, super thin strand of material around 0.005mm across and composed almost entirely of carbon atoms. These atoms bond together to form microscopic crystals that line up parallel to the length of the fibre. It makes the atomic structure of carbon fibre similar to graphite and graphene, with sheets of carbon atoms arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern. And it’s the arrangement of the atoms that makes carbon fibre so strong for its size.

Carbon fibre is normally used to reinforce components in missiles, jet engines and the world’s fastest cars… not jackets.

Carbon fibre can be 5x stronger than steel and much lighter

The material we know as carbon fibre is made up of thousands of these individual carbon filaments bundled together and protected by a coating. These larger carbon fibres are classified by how much pulling force the fibre can exert without breaking – known as tensile modulus. Whereas steel has a tensile modulus of around 29 million pounds of force per square inch (PSI), carbon fibre ranges from around 30 to 145 million PSI, up to 5x stronger than steel.

A material used in super cars, now in a jacket

Carbon fibres are typically combined with other materials to make a composite. So when you think about carbon fibre, if you ever do, you think of the black and grey checks on a super light bike frame or supercar. These are carbon fibres impregnated with a plastic resin and baked to create carbon fibre reinforced polymer. If your shell were made from that it would be completely solid, so we’ve done something different. Here, carbon fibre is woven into a flexible textile alongside Dyneema® and elastane, creating an advanced but wearable composite.