ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (REUTERS) - Twins Steve and Nick Tidball are wearing their new creation - a solar-powered glow-in-the-dark, waterproof jacket.
The keen sportsmen hope it will appeal to late-night runners and cyclists.

Steve Tidball, chief executive officer of Vollebak, says: "You can use any light source to charge it. The stronger the light source, and the longer you expose it to it, the longer it's going to glow for. So if you were to leave it out in the sun in broad daylight for a couple of hours it's going to glow for 12 hours. If you take out your iPhone torch and you put a little spot on it for two seconds it's going to glow for another few minutes. If you have access to a 12,000 watt flash, like you would in a camera studio, you're going to glow like you're part of a Superman movie."

An ultra-thin layer of a phosphorescent compound absorbs and stores light to be emitted at night.

It is situated at the fabric's centre, so it will not wash out or rub off.

Says Steve Tidball: "The reason that this jacket is new is because the stuff that glows is inside the jacket and it's made to work in conjunction with the stuff that lets you do sport in it. So that's why it's so important not to put the glow in the dark technology on the surface of the jacket but actually to embed it inside the jacket because then you can do sport, you can still sweat, and rain can't get in."

Mr Nick Tidball, co-founder of Vollebak, says: "I think in terms of the design probably one of the best things, beyond the fact it glows at night, is the fact that it's incredibly stretchy. And that is going to be one of the things you're going to see in the future of sports clothing."

The jacket weighs just 230g and costs US$350 (S$471).