Ask Lemmy

considers

You know, not really a problem that I've thought about, but outerwear is gonna limit what people can show from a fashion standpoint.

I'm not aware of any effort by clothing designers to really work on the problem, but I wonder if it's possible to make outerwear that thermally-insulates, but is transparent.

I don't know if it would run into problems like fogging up on the inner surface and that messing with transparency. If so, it might be possible to mitigate that via use of forced ventilation coupled with an inverse-flow heat exchanger, or maybe using some kind of hydrophilic insert to absorb moisture.

goes searching

What I get for "transparent jackets" is mostly raincoat-type things, thin sheet of plastic.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/661392917/long-womans-transparent-trench-coat

The problem with those is that those can't do much to insulate.

There's also this:

https://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2024/10/transparent-down-jacket-keeps-you-warm-sans-feathers-uses-near-infrared-rays-from-sunlight-to-do-so/Transparent-down-jacket-by-Kosuke-Tsumura-2.jpg

Which probably will do something to insulate, since air insulates pretty well, but the bending plastic on the sides of the air pockets are going to do a number on the aesthetic, since one can't see clearly through it.

What I guess one would want would be a substance that thermally-insulates, is transparent, and also doesn't act like a lens to distort what's on the other side.

Aerogel is one of the best thermal insulators we have, so you'd need very little thickness to provide a very great amount of thermal insulation.

It can be at least somewhat-transparent; most shots I've seen look kind of like a cloud:

And it looks like people are looking into using a thin layer on windows, as effectively-transparent insulation:

https://tokyo-smes.com/en/productservice/transparent-glass-film/

It's also extremely strong.

However:

• It's rigid, which isn't ideal for clothing; the human body moves, and if you want it to fit to form, it has to be able to contour to it. That being said, we have made human clothing out of rigid substances before, like chain mail

you just need to segment the stuff into small pieces. To some extent, outerwear doesn't need to contour to form; hoop skirts, for example, didn't. We have made clothing out of joined, rigid metal plates before; it's clearly at least possible, though outside of armor and sheer novelty of aesthetic, I don't think that we've ever really had a practical reason to actually do so:

![](https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/d14b97ac-1771-4ffc-aecd-f548e2bbdc4c.jpeg)

• I understand that it's also damaged by contact with water. This can be dealt with by coating it with something that protects against water, but that stuff has to be able to resist being punctured. Need a transparent coating, maybe some kind of plastic, maybe Gorilla Glass or something.

• It's presently (relatively) expensive to make. My guess is that that can probably be overcome; industrial diamonds used to once be pretty expensive too.

  searches

  It looks like these people have a flexible, composite blanket partly made out of aerogel and billed for use in apparel, though they're not trying to make something that's transparent (and their composite is even more expensive).