This week, the Plum Edit team headed to Vollebak’s pop up, to speak with the co-founder of the brand, Nick.
Launched nine years ago by Nick and his twin brother, Vollebak doesn't just make clothing; they construct the future. Leaving behind stable careers in advertising, the brothers set out to solve a fundamental problem they saw in the fashion industry: a distinct lack of raw, untethered innovation.
Nick’s approach to menswear makes sense when you look at his roots. Trained at the prestigious Bartlett School of Architecture, he views garments through the lens of structural engineering and materiality rather than seasonal trends.
That relentless drive has resulted in clothing that reads like a sci-fi manifest. Vollebak is currently working on a bomber jacket crafted entirely out of rock, and a belt made from an amorphous liquid metal - the exact material used for robot gears sent to Saturn's moon, Titan.
The crown jewel of Vollebak’s current lineup, however, is the Sonic Jacket. Built in collaboration with FBFX, the legendary special effects costume house responsible for Star Wars Stormtrooper armor and Ryan Gosling’s suit in Project Hail Mary, the jacket is a radical merger of technology and the human nervous system.
The concept was born out of a fascination with frequency. Human hearing spans from 20Hz to 20,000Hz, but our bodies absorb frequencies far beyond those auditory borders.
Without the rigid constraints of a traditional scientist, Nick used himself as a human guinea pig, firing frequencies from 4Hz all the way up to 20,000Hz through the jacket while wired up to a camera. What he discovered was a map of human emotion triggered entirely by vibration.
The thesis is wild, but proven: Vollebak has created a garment that can actively alter your brain waves and physical state, shifting you from high-adrenaline fight or flight mode to deep, cosmic relaxation at the turn of a dial.
The jacket features exposed wires and visible speakers. It comes in striking whites, blacks, and high-visibility yellow. It looks like it belongs on an astronaut, because its aesthetic is born purely out of its function.
But Nick also embraces the beautiful chaos of the creative process, welcoming the accidental orange, blue, and gray clips provided by FBFX during prototyping.
For Nick, the Sonic Jacket isn't just a seasonal product; it's a multi-decade exploration into what clothing can be. He views it as a historical milestone, right alongside the invention of chainmail armour or the Apollo spacesuits.
Vollebak is firmly leading the charge into fashion's final frontier, watch the full video below.
