Goggled coat

Luxury retailer Luisa Viaroma at one point sold these $424 Matt Nylon Hooded Down Jackets with integrated, goggled facemasks. In an apparent bid to soften the appearance of alien menace projected by the garment when fully zipped, the vendor added a silly poof-ball at the crown. This latter seems easily removed, and I speculate that it is similar to the little snap-off bit of wink-nudge metal that converts your semi-automatic to full-auto -- that is, a way to claim relative harmlessness at the point of sale. Because once you lose the bogglie-ball, brother, you're pure terror in this one.

I'd Wear It: Winter Jacket With Integrated Goggles In Hood

Matt Nylon Hooded Down Jacket (Product page/dead link)

• [Manel]

  Two words popped into my mind at first glance of this pic:  BURNING MAN.

  • [phazeaction]

    One word popped into my mind after reading your comment: SWEATRIVER.

    • [Mim]

      Two words popped into my mind after reading your comment: NIGHTTIME, duh

• [CHoldredge]

  It’s an amusing analogy, I guess, but do you know of any place where it’s legal to sell, as anything other than a machine gun, a semi-auto that’s so easily converted to full-auto? It’s certainly not legal in the US and Canada, and I’m very doubtful that it is in the UK. I’d be surprised if guns like that are made for any market in the world. It would require a government that wants to restrict machine guns, but is unwilling to close the most obvious loopholes.

  • [EH]

    wat

  • [Phil Ward]

    We don’t get semi-autos in the UK, in anything other than rim fire :(

    Also, I’m pretty sure it’s reasonably hard to convert semi to fully…

• [George Herbert]

  Point of information regarding the “small tab” – in the US at least, you can’t do that (build a firearms trigger with an easily removable part that makes it fully automatic), for reasonable values of can’t.  The BATF examines firearms and if they determine it’s too easy to convert to fully automatic will reclassify it as a machinegun and take them all away from buyers (or take them away until better parts are provided).

  There’s a reasonableness interpretation here; removing a disconnector catch of some sort can create a slam-fire weapon which goes off immediately on reloading, without any delay, and is technically fully automatic.  But it’s ridiculously unsafe and can fire while it’s still loading the cartridge, and they don’t count that.  Despite that, several AR-15 components have for example evolved over time to prevent that anyways (various notches and hooks that catch the hammer if it’s coming up as the bolt closes).

  People still do sometimes remove those parts and file off all the safety catch parts, and try the result, and it blows up in their face…

  • [Adam]

    I came here from Google Reader to basically say the same thing. Isn’t it nice how easily we misrepresent the facts to suit our agenda?

• [JohnHinesJr]

  The “little snap-off bit of wink-nudge metal that converts your semi-automatic to full-auto” is a myth.  If it were real, I would have found it by now.  For instance, the conversion of an AR-15 to fully automatic requires drilling a pair of precisely placed holes, and inserting a roll pin through said holes.  It also requires a bolt/carrier group which is able to take advantage of said roll pin.  These are not exactly complicated requirements to fulfill, but neither are they the work of a few minutes with a file.  

• [SuperMatt]

  If you’re not a big enough nerd already, try wearing this coat!

• [Patrick McGorrill]

  Can’t find the original jacket but they are still selling a very similar one called “AI RIDERS ON THE STORM.” Taking the space alien menace look to the max, they’re recommending you wear the jacket with this “armadillo recycled rubber backpack” (only $383) http://images.luisaviaroma.com/Big56I/4P9/001_bc6c4612-41dd-4aef-88b6-0f6eaf0c9e34.JPG Sweet.

  • [Ping Kee]

    That helmet is excellent!

• [Preston Sturges]

  Needs a green Sleestak version

• [Greg Miller]

  Looks like it wouldn’t be too hard to convert into a passable Combine from Half Life 2.

• [Dale Glass]

  Why don’t they use those at north pole expeditions? All the documentaries I remember had people with frozen noses and icicles hanging from their beards. This seems like the ideal solution for harsh, windy climates.

• [Ipo]

   Wait till it hatches. 

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    I was thinking that black would look better, but you’ve won me over to glistening white.

• [Gordon Stark]

  I have waited all my life to be able to buy a proper full containment heated space suite for use in earth’s contaminated and hostile environment.

  In the winters on this planet, the external temperature drops to BELOW ZERO for God’s sake, and in the summers it can become so hot that one’s biology cooks, and yet no one makes a proper containment suit to maintain a genetic life form’s environmental needs and temperature and protection from the toxic environment.

  What is the matter with the other genetic lifeforms on this planet?

  Is it imagined that there is no market, and that there is no one who would like suitable environmental protection when they go down to the planet’s surface on excursion?

  Why are their no containment suits with heating and air conditioning and air filtering for when one needs to leave one’s surface base?

  Do people not realize they are space creatures living on a planet in outer space?

  How can it be the 21st century, and I can not just go and buy a proper space suit for when there is hostile weather or Fukishima rains?

  What is so hard about bringing to market a suit which will actually suit a person, without requiring them to expose themselves to the hazards of the elements in space here on the surface of a planet?

  Seriously people.

• [typorrhea]

  Might prevent a repeat of this unfortunate episode:
  http://boingboing.net/2002/06/30/i-wuz-robbed.html

• [Ǥɍǡḩḁᶆ Ӻᴙᴇᴇᴍᴀᴎ]

  Serious Halloween potential.

• [Steve Florman]

  Clearly you don’t need me to point out that you’re either disseminating or hallucinating about the mythical ‘little snap-off bit of wink-nudge metal that converts your semi-automatic to full-auto,” but I’ll do so anyway.  No such thing exists.  It is nearly impossible to convert any semi-automatic firearm to full-auto without a machine shop, at which point you’ve illegally manufactured an automatic weapon.

• [Rob Gee]

  It isn’t as good as the British football hooligan classic C.P. Company coat from the early 90s http://www.kckrs.com/the-odd-looking-c-p-company-goggle-jacket-in-more-shapes-than-one/ Proper style for when you want to be in disguise…