The thing about warm coats is that they tend to be super pudgy — consider the puffy French number that Drake's "Hotline Bling" video made famous — in order to get the right "loft," or the amount of bulk needed to provide insulation.
Going live on Kickstarter Monday, the Oros Orion is just millimeters thick, thanks to a space-age material called aerogel.
As we've reported on before, aerogel is the lightest solid yet created, yet it's strong enough to support the weight of a car or survive in space. Invented in the early 1900s, it's been used in everything from lasers to spacecraft to nuclear weapons.
But until now, aerogel was super brittle — you could snap it with your hands.
The breakthrough for Oros was inventing a flexible, pliable aerogel suitable for apparel invented by Oros. It provides the insulation for new jacket, snowpants, and a hat.
The insulation is serious: it can be blasted with liquid nitrogen (negative 321 degrees F, over two times colder than any temperature ever recorded on Earth) and not have any problems.
"We're going to change the way people think about the outerwear-performance gear market, that you have to layer up to do your best" Oros cofounder Michael Markesbery tells Tech Insider.
"No, you can wear this three millimeter thin jacket, three millimeter thin pants, and a beanie, and you'll be good to go," he says.
Early-bird pricing for the Orion line is $40 for the beanie, $99 for the gloves, and $275 for the jacket.
