A Jacket to Shush Your Phone

Victor Johansson’s Escape Jacket on Yanko Design.

A post on Gizmodo today points out an interesting design for a jacket with a pocket that automatically silences your phone by blocking radio waves, from U.K. designer Victor Johansson. The Escape Jacket also features an NFC chip in its lining that is intended to turn a phone’s antenna off when placed inside so it won’t run down the battery by fruitlessly searching for a signal.

While we don’t always want to wear a jacket (and most of us still don’t have NFC-equipped phones), the basic idea of garments that can allow us to easily cut ourselves off from digital communication is a good one. There are plenty of situations when I have to remember to silence my phone (movies and meetings, to name just two), and sometimes it’s nice to just disable digital missives altogether. Having a method as simple as a special pocket to make it happen makes a lot of sense. As the designer notes, shoving your phone into the pocket could also be a delightfully dramatic way to end a phone call.

I’m not that interested in a jacket pocket specifically, but a pocket in a messenger bag? Sign me up.