In 1956 the endocrinologist Hans Selye found that stress isn’t just a feeling, it’s a biological event. Your heart rate climbs, adrenaline and cortisol flood your system, and digestion and repair are put on hold.It’s a useful response when you need to give a sharp-toothed predator the swerve. It’s less useful when the predator is just a 3am email or a noisy neighbour.The neuroscientist Bruce McEwen later named the cumulative cost allostatic load, and blood pressure, immunity and sleep all pay it.
Clothing can help you go places, do things or make some kind of statement.
It can help you run faster, climb higher and survive colder conditions. But can it help you do less?
In 2015 we launched a hoodie that zipped over your face. It came in a dusty bubblegum pink developed by a scientist to calm violent prisoners.
The Relaxation Hoodie was our attempt to create a womb-like, wearable isolation tank, clothing that could slow you to a complete stop. Or as Wired magazine put it at the time, to “induce calming oblivion”.
Just over a decade on, with more and more science insisting on the need for meditative time-outs, we’ve rebuilt it in a better material and a more engineered design.
The problem is switching it off.
 We launched Vollebak with the Relaxation Hoodie, a wearable isolation tank designed to help you do absolutely nothing. Now it’s back in the colour of the great cosmic void and the dead of night. Downtime just got darker. In the 1970s Harvard’s Herbert Benson identified the relaxation response – the body’s opposite setting, where heart rate falls, breathing slows and the repair work starts – and showed you can bring it on deliberately. Around the same time the scientist Alexander Schauss concluded that a specific bubblegum pink could slow the heart rate and reduce aggression.In 1979 a naval prison in Seattle painted a holding cell in it and reported no hostile behaviour. Named Baker-Miller Pink after the 2 officers responsible, it soon picked up a nickname we prefer – Drunk Tank Pink. It’s the colour we launched the Relaxation Hoodie in. Neuro Navy comes from the other end of the spectrum.The pink was designed to act on you. Navy just gives you less to deal with. It sucks in light so there’s less contrast for the eye and brain to process. It’s the colour of night, shade and withdrawal. And nobody will wonder which cell you’ve just been released from when you’re wearing it on the train. The soft shell is now a heavyweight bonded wool twill woven in Italy, dense on the outside and soft against your skin. The mesh visor of the original hoodie is now a laser-cut eye mask, so you can see out and nobody can see in. Asymmetric sling pockets hold your arms crossed over your stomach, and 2 side hand pockets are useful if you want to use it as a day-to-day hoodie. Raglan sleeves mean there’s no shoulder seam pressing into you when you lie down, every internal seam is coverstitched, bound or French-seamed, and grosgrain tape runs behind the 2-way zip so nothing hard touches your face.The Relaxation Hoodie now comes in Neuro Navy and the original Drunk Tank Pink, with a more generous fit than the original version.    BUY THE RELAXATION HOODIE-Laser-cut eye mask lets you see out but nobody see in -2 concealed sling pockets designed to hold your arms across your body in a comforting hug -Rebuilt in a super warm wool twill woven in Italy by Manteco           You can contact us anytime at team@vollebak.com Please mention The Silo website when contacting. Vollebak Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 06673160 Registered office: Vollebak The Centro Buildings 3rd Floor Centro 4, 20-24 Mandela Street London, NW1 0DU Copyright © 2026 Vollebak. All rights reserved. |
For the Silo, Nick and Steve at Vollebak
