Vollebak’s Sonic Jacket turns wearables into immersive sound art

Vollebak has turned a puffer into a piece of wearable sound art, and the absurdity is the point. Built with FBFX, the London special-effects studio behind Dune, The Martian and Project Hail Mary, the Sonic Jacket arrives less like outerwear and more like a collector’s commission for someone who wants a gift that cannot be mistaken for anything else.

The prototype is built around 180 inward-facing speakers, each one 32mm in diameter and 10mm deep, spread across the body, arms and hood. The range runs from 4Hz to 20,000Hz, and Vollebak says the aim is not to broadcast sound into a room but to make the wearer feel it through the body. That single design choice is what pushes the jacket from novelty into spectacle: it is engineered as an experience, not just a garment.

FBFX is a fitting partner for the idea. Founded in 1993, the company has spent more than three decades making armor, superheroes and spacesuits with integrated electronics for film and television. That background shows in the Sonic Jacket’s theatrical precision. Luxury gifting has increasingly rewarded objects that spark conversation, photograph well and feel impossible to duplicate, and this one does all three without trying to behave like a normal jacket at all.

The control unit extends the same logic. It includes an MP3 player with 10 preset frequencies, a physical tuning dial, microSD storage for up to 1,000 sound profiles and a Bluetooth app still in development. Vollebak has said it is exploring how sound can influence mood and “brain state,” which gives the piece a pseudo-scientific edge that sits comfortably alongside its high-concept engineering. It is also listed with a price on application rather than a retail tag, the kind of opacity that signals this is still a prototype and a status object before it is anything else.

The Sonic Jacket was shown alongside Vollebak’s Spaceshop project with Bang & Olufsen and SAGA Space Architects, a larger concept built around interplanetary drone deliveries between Earth, the Moon and Mars. Together, the projects make a clear statement about where ultra-luxury is drifting now: toward exclusivity, technical theater and gifts that are meant to be shared as much as worn. Vollebak is aiming for a commercially viable version by 2027, but even as a prototype, the jacket already behaves like a future heirloom for the collector who has everything except a wearable sound installation.