For everyone who describes their wardrobe as "all black everything," they're lying. Now there's a color even blacker than black: Viperblack.
Phoebe Heess and Gabriel Platt, founders of German fashion label Phoebe Heess, claim to have created the first wearable material in a color that is blacker than black.
The duo is producing a T-shirt made of treated cotton that reflects 40% less light and therefore appears darker than other fabrics in the traditional hue.
Viperblack follows NASA's 2011 creation of a super-black material and last year's Vantablack invention, which is known to be the darkest material ever made.
While these revolutionary products absorb close to 99% of light and appear almost dimensionless and as deep as a black hole, their carbon nanotube elements are known to contain carcinogens that can be harmful and potentially cancer-causing if worn on the body.
"Our tech partner came up with the brilliant idea to turn to nature and look for organisms that are able to carry an extremely black color," Heess tells Mashable. "That's how they came across the Gaboon Viper who uses ultra-black scales to camouflage itself from predators and prey. The rest is reverse engineering."
Heess and Platt worked with experts to replicate both the nanotube's light-trapping methods and the viper's natural dark scales in a cotton that is safe and comfortable to wear.
Also a designer for Stella McCartney's Adidas line, Heess' personal infatuation with black fueled her mission to find a darker alternative for the fashion industry.
"My love for the (technically non-) color black comes from the Japanese design approach of focusing on the basics and doing them right," Heess tells Mashable. "Another big inspiration is the painter Pierre Soulages, who says he doesn't need colors because he uses different black surfaces to refract the light."
While NASA paved the way for this technology, the source of inspiration that finally spurred Heess and Pratt to action is less scientific.
When Pratt showed Heess a meme of Wednesday Addams saying, “I will stop wearing black when they invent a darker color,” Heess said, "It just clicked."
After reaching their financial goal on Kickstarter on Nov. 13, the tees can be purchased in both male and female sizes for $75. The product will begin shipping to customers in March.