Optim wool used in the Vollebak ‘Future Suit’

Vollebak is an award-winning clothing brand that specialises in cutting edge menswear, using the forefront of science-based materials and technology. Headquartered in London, the brand was launched in 2015 by twin brothers, designers and athletes Nick and Steve Tidball.

“In every industry there’s someone building the future, whether it’s technology, architecture, food, cars or space rockets. In clothing, it’s us,” Vollebak said.

“As a brand, we keep asking ‘What can clothing do that hasn’t been done before?’ And that’s what we’re really interested in designing – using science and technology to create clothes from the future.”

Perfectly applying this ethos, Vollebak last month launched a pioneering new Merino wool product, aptly titled The Future Suit, which is the company’s contemporary, weather-resistant take on the suit.

The Future Suit combines a matching jacket and pants made from predominantly Merino wool, which Vollebak has transformed into a smooth, minimalist, high tech material. The cut is relaxed enough so that the suit feels comfortable for whatever your adventures are that day, but also smart enough for when you’ve got a dress code to meet.

“We’ve designed the Future Suit to easily take you from a plane to a boardroom, to lunch, or up a mountain,” Vollebak said. “It doesn’t look or feel like any wool suit you’ve seen before.”

The Future Suit jacket borrows from the design of the original blouson jacket – a short jacket with a fitted waist found in military uniforms from the mid-20^th century right up to the modern day. The jacket is fitted but not restrictive, and the pants come with a slight taper towards the bottom of the leg.

Optim™ technology

Vollebak prides itself on working with the most advanced materials in the world – whether they started life in NASA or in nature. While, the company has previously used Merino wool for base-layers and mid-layers, it had never before used the fibre for its outerwear, until now.

The Future Suit is built using a blend of 70% Australian Merino wool, plus polyester and polyamide, that is engineered using Optim™ spinning technology.

Optim^TM fabric is one of the innovative and high-value woven Merino wool fabrics developed by the wool development centre set up in 2013 by AWI along with one of China’s leading woollen textile enterprises, The Nanshan Group.

The fabric is constructed at very high levels of thread density in warp and weft using yarns that have been stretched, but not set, during Optim^TM processing. It is only when the fabric is wet-finished that the stretch is released causing the yarns to contract, thus leading to an extreme tightening of the fabric structure and the creation of the immensely dense fabric.

After optimising the spinning, weaving and finishing processes, the fabric has enhanced water and wind resistant properties without the application of any chemical treatments. The fabric retains all of Merino wool’s fine properties such as breathability, thermoregulation and odour resistance. The Future Suit jacket and pants are also machine washable.

Available online

Vollebak primarily retails its apparel online via its website, with free worldwide shipping.

However, reflecting the extreme disposition of the brand, it also chooses to stock some of its gear in the most remote, really remote, stores on Earth, The first store to stock Vollebak gear was in 2020 and happened to be in Australia: the Tjukayirla Roadhouse located deep in the Great Victoria Desert of Western Australia, 300km east of Laverton on the Great Central Road. So, yes, that remote!

More information:

www.vollebak.com
www.instagram.com/vollebak

This article appeared in the March 2024 edition of AWI’s Beyond the Bale magazine. Reproduction of the article is encouraged.