Vollebak Sonic Jacket uses 180 speakers to create a wearable sound field
Vollebak’s Sonic Jacket introduces a prototype garment built to turn sound into a physical field around the body. Created by Vollebak with London special effects studio FBFX, the jacket uses 180 inward-facing speakers to send frequency directly through the wearer, positioning clothing as an active tool for changing cognitive and physiological states. Presented as an experiment in portable sound therapy, the project moves beyond headphones or external speakers to test how garments could become immersive systems for focus, recovery, creativity and altered perception.
The Sonic Jacket is designed around the idea that sound can be felt as much as heard. Each speaker measures 32 millimetres across and 10 millimetres deep, placed inside laser-cut openings across the jacket’s structure. Instead of projecting sound outward like a conventional audio system, the speakers face inward, directing frequencies from 4Hz to 20kHz toward the body. The result is a wearable sound field that treats the torso as a resonant chamber, using vibration and frequency as a form of immersive sound therapy.
Vollebak developed the prototype with FBFX, the special effects studio known for building advanced costume systems for films including Dune, Prometheus, The Martian, Gladiator and Project Hail Mary. The collaboration brings cinematic engineering into wearable technology, translating the studio’s experience with functional spacesuits and complex body-worn structures into a garment designed for everyday human perception. The jacket is not presented as a fashion object alone, but as an experimental interface between clothing, sound and the nervous system.
The Sonic Jacket operates through a control unit fitted with a built-in MP3 player and 10 pre-set frequencies. A physical dial allows the wearer to fine-tune the sound feed, while a Micro SD card reader can store up to 1,000 pre-set frequencies. Vollebak is also developing a companion app that will connect through Bluetooth, suggesting a future version in which users can select or customise sonic programs according to mood, focus, recovery or creative state.
The project builds on growing interest in the relationship between frequency and mental state. Human cultures have long used drums, chants and resonant spaces to alter perception, while contemporary research links different brainwave patterns with states such as calm focus, meditation, creativity and flow. Vollebak’s Sonic Jacket translates that lineage into a wearable installation, using distributed speakers to make frequency portable, personal and close to the skin.
For Vollebak founders Nick and Steve Tidball, the Sonic Jacket continues the brand’s wider investigation into clothing for future human needs. The company has previously worked with materials connected to space exploration, climate adaptation, shielding, copper, wood and programmable textiles, earning recognition through TIME Best Inventions. With the Sonic Jacket, Vollebak proposes a new direction for human health and wearable design, where garments may move beyond protection and expression to become tools for regulating how the body feels.
All images by Vollebak, shared with permission
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