Maintaining a comfortable body temperature is a perpetual challenge for runners who want to stay warm at the start of an early morning run, but not overheat as their body warms up, requiring them to stop to strip off layers. The new Nike Aerogami Jacket is designed for that conundrum, meant to both warm and cool an athlete by automatically opening vents for added breathability when they start to sweat and then closing in the absence of moisture.
It’s not only a perpetual challenge for athletes, but also one for companies making performance gear. Making a garment that keeps an athlete warm is easy, as is making one that’s breathable so that sweat, the body’s natural cooling system, can evaporate and escape. But making a garment that checks both of those boxes is a bigger challenge, and one that scientists from the Nike Explore Team and the company’s Sport Research Lab believe they’ve come one step closer to solving.
It’s no coincidence that the new Nike Run Division Aerogami Jacket has a name that sounds similar to origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. A “moisture-reactive film” is applied to sections of fabric on the front and back of the jacket that makes them automatically contract when they touch the runner’s sweat. As those sections of fabric contract, they fold to form “tiny winged vents” that allow air to flow through the jacket as wearer runs, venting the hot humid air created by sweat evaporating off their bodies, and cooling them down.
As the jacket then dries, the fabric expands and closes the vents to ensure a runner doesn’t get too cold, and the whole process repeats again and again to help regulate an athlete’s temperature, without requiring them to have to repeatedly stop to take off and put on a jacket again and again.
The Nike Run Division Aerogami Jacket will be available in two gender-specific versions with vents positioned differently for each cut, and while the women’s jacket will be available through Nike’s website and “select retailers” next month, the men’s jacket won’t be available until the Fall. As for pricing? Nike hasn’t revealed that yet, which should answer any questions on whether or not this will be a pricey accessory. (It will probably be very expensive.)