Skyscrape’s jacket automatically adjusts to temperature fluctuations | Fashion Innovation News USA
Outerwear has been deemed as one of the most technologically enhanced apparel categories in the recent years with giants like Nike investing heavily in research and development for improving the utility and functional features of their products.
Amidst this, Skyscrape has developed a line of jackets that can easily adapt to the fluctuations in the temperature keeping the body warm when the winds get cold outside.
Their jackets are made of a highly responsive ‘Active Yarn’ which is structured to produce a heightened response of expansion or contraction that eventually leads to changes in the thickness of the fabric.
This means that the jacket will loft up when the temperature drops and flat out when the temperature rises.
More on this, Brent Ridley, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Skyscrape, said “We have invented a type of fabric that literally grows in thickness as the temperatures become colder. The very first yarns were made by hand.”
Brent also said that the fabric’s response is a natural material’s response and there are no batteries, wires or sensors involved in the design.
Carly Mick, the Senior Manufacturing Manager, averred “Temperature responsive fabric allows you to basically have a flat garment when you are warm and something that’s lofted when it’s cold. Skyscrape developed its own yarn, and the magic is in the yarn.”
Adding to their vision for the jackets, David Cho, Chief Business Officer, said, “I think it will change the way people think about clothing. It’s going to add one more product feature that people will think about or expect from the clothing that they buy.”
The San Francisco-based firm is supported by United States Department of Energy alongside the funding received by Y Combinator to continue their research which has been based out of Otherlab.
It would be interesting to see how similar innovations translate to other product categories.
However, for now, their one-of-a-kind technology is in the prototype phase and the final designs are set to reach the markets later this year.