vollebak prepares for when all hell breaks loose with chemical-resistant rubber trench coat
the limited-edition yellow trench coat uses double-faced polychloroprene rubber engineered to resist chemicals, oils, ozone, flame and weathering.
VOLLEBAK PREPARES FOR WHEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE
Vollebak’s FWAHBL (For When All Hell Breaks Loose) jacket is cut from the same material used to manufacture airtight chemical protection suits. Produced from the same material used to manufacture airtight chemical protection suits, the jacket arrives at the center of a fictional universe complete with a comic book, film-style trailer and playable video game currently in development. For a coat conceived around chaos, the rollout is remarkably organized.
Its outer shell is made from double-faced polychloroprene rubber coated onto both sides of a woven polyester core. The material is engineered to resist chemicals, oils, ozone, flame and weathering, giving the trench coat a considerably tougher résumé than the average rain jacket. Still, Vollebak stresses that it is not certified safety equipment: this is clothing for bad weather and existential dread, not for wandering confidently into an actual chemical spill.
CHEMICAL-SUIT MATERIAL, WITHOUT THE CHEMICAL-SUIT PROMISE
The textile is engineered by Fothergill, a British manufacturer that has developed protective materials since 1847. The company first supplied the British Army during the Boer War, while its fabrics have since been used across helmets, body armor and military vehicles in the Gulf, Bosnia and Afghanistan. Today, its production ranges from chemical protection suits to reinforcements for ballistic armor.
Vollebak leaves little room for the industrial material to look discreet. The trench coat is finished entirely in yellow and is delivered inside a garment bag made from the same chemical-suit textile as the jacket itself. Rather than disguising its protective origins, the design turns them into its main visual language — although the bright color suggests that keeping a low profile was never really part of the emergency plan.
A JACKET WITH ITS OWN SIDE QUEST
The jacket arrives in packaging modeled on a video game box, with graphics that move through four decades of gaming history. Its fictional world begins with the 8-bit arcade cabinets of the 1980s, passes through the home-console adventures of the 1990s and the action-heavy titles that followed, and lands in today’s near-photorealistic environments. Vollebak has also produced a trailer that shifts between these different gameplay eras, while a playable FWAHBL game remains in development.
A superhero-style comic strip expands the story online, with a limited-edition printed version placed inside each of the ten boxes. Together, the jacket, garment bag, packaging, trailer, comic and forthcoming game turn the release into something between advanced outerwear and a compact media franchise. Whether all hell actually breaks loose remains uncertain, but the accompanying merchandise is already prepared.
