Talk about life imitating art. Yet another futuristic bit of fashion dreamed up in a certain '80s flick is becoming a reality.
Earlier this fall, the then-fictitious self-lacing sneakers made famous in Back to the Future 2 manifested, sort of, in October. A series of cryptic tweets between the film's star, Michael J. Fox, and Nike on October 21, 2015 (the exact date that Fox's character and Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown travel to in the flick) resulted in the very exciting confirmation that the kicks would indeed become available to the masses in 2016. Next up? The self-drying jacket.
The futuristic outerwear piece, seen on the silver screen's Marty McFly, is now a reality, thanks to start-up Falyon Wearable Tech, which is currently raising funds on Kickstarter for the SDJ-01 (that stands for Self-Drying Jacket, take one). The company's crowdfunding campaign runs through December 28, and has currently amassed nearly $5K of its $12,000 goal in its first five days.
"We tore so many jackets apart, tried different ventilation techniques with various tubes and pipes, and nothing was working. We were starting to see why no one had invented these jackets, and we were about ready to give up," Falyon cofounder Aaron Coleman told Refinery29 of the summer-long process of creating the jacket, which involved unsuccessfully mounting fans on jackets. "This changed when we began to focus less on air flow, and more on air pressure."
The jacket is made of nylon with synthetic insulation, "both materials which are known for their water resistance as well as quick drying abilities," Coleman says. The jacket, which is available in five colors, will ship in April 2016, and will retail for $199 (early adopters that get in on the Kickstarter can snag it for $149). Falyon is still figuring out where the coat will be sold after the Kickstarter ends this month, but expect it to be an e-comm-only product.
As for the timing of the jacket's inception, "there was sort of a 'race' to make the world like Back to the Future this year, and we got swept up in that," Coleman says of gadgetry from the film that arrived IRL this year, like hoverboards and those aforementioned magical Nikes. "We just happened to be at the right place at the right time when inspiration struck."