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HELIUM-10000 Is a $10,000 Gas-Filled Jacket That Floats Like a Balloon

05.14.21 | By
HELIUM-10000 Is a $10,000 Gas-Filled Jacket That Floats Like a Balloon

When designers refer to “blue skies”, it’s usually made in reference to no-limits brainstorming sessions, the purely creative exercise of investigating “what if?”. Designer Andrew Kostman’s HELIUM-10000 helium jacket is a blue sky idea that is coming to life, fashion imagined to literally float above its owner’s head like a balloon.

Details are currently scant, with the HELIUM-10000 simply described as the “first inflatable helium jacket designed in Italy and made in Japan”. Aside from one particularly iridescent colorway, the jacket looks similar to a multitude of puffy outerwear already available…except “puffier”. But while the HELIUM-10000 is intended to be worn normally like any jacket, it’s also outfitted to be filled with the element of its namesake, inflating and floating like a stringed party balloon when removed (we’d admit a level of disappointment discovering the jacket doesn’t allow its wearer to float like a balloon with the HELIUM-10000 jacket on).

Kostman’s buoyant outerwear is made of of a “top secret” material, which imparts the jacket with tensile strength while remaining lightweight enough to float. Paired with a helium cylinder, the jacket can be filled with the lighter than air gas to turn clothing into a “look at me” accessory. The designer promises, “…this is not just a concept but a real product that has been in development for months now. We’re in [the] phase of optimization and micro adjustments…Testing other materials also.”

The designer also has announced a related accessory – the Fury Rocket, a wireless Bluetooth music box inspired by the HELIUM-10000 helium jacket, mimicking the floating and spinning sensation in miniature.

Only 100 of the HELIUM-10000 jackets will be made, available in six different color options – Rainbow N, Vanta, Rose, Gold, Ice and Silver. But before you start floating away on dreams of your own noble gas jacket, note this limited edition piece starts at $10,000 each, a pretty price to pay for a fashionable folly.

Gregory Han is a Senior Editor at Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.