Alum-Designed Socks Made with Cotton, Poly, and...Coffee

Around this time last year, Slice of MIT highlighted the Ministry of Supply, a men’s apparel startup founded by four MIT alums. Their featured item: the Apollo, a dress shirt implementing NASA-grade technology that adjusts to body temperature. A Kickstarter campaign for the Apollo raised nearly $430,000 and the company shipped more than 6,000 shirts to 43 countries.

Rather than revel in the success of their space-age shirt, the Ministry—whose clothing line also includes t-shirts and slacks—is planning to add a new item: the Atlas, a dress sock infused with coffee.

Caffeinated clothing? Well, not exactly.

According to the company, the Atlas is a moisture-wicking sock that incorporates similar temperature-adjusting technology. Unfortunately, wearing a pair of Atlas won’t satisfy your caffeine addiction. The socks are infused with carbonized coffee, which contains nitrogen. Through a process called adsorption, the nitrogen helps absorb any unwanted odors that may come from shoes (or feet).

In addition to the java injection, the Atlas was designed with the precise technical specifications one would expect from an MIT startup seeking to produce the world’s most high-tech socks.

From “MIT startup offers highly engineered dress sock,” CNET:

“The young company has taken an approach to socks that feels more like that of an auto company creating a new car. The fibers are infused with carbonized coffee to prevent odor. Strain analysis was used to map out stress points. Pressure mapping and thermal imaging guided the placement of cushioning and ventilation.”

According to the Ministry, the company has spent eight months developing the Atlas, which is still in prototype mode. But similar to the Apollo last year, the new-age dress socks have been well-received. With more than three weeks remaining (as of July 3), the Atlas’s Kickstarter campaign has already tripled its funding goal. The first batch of socks is scheduled to ship in November 2013.

The Ministry of Supply was founded by Kevin Rustagi ’11, Gihan Amarasiriwardena ’11, and graduate students Kit Hickey and Aman Advani. The company’s showroom, which features their full apparel line and is located near South Station in Boston, is open each weekday throughout the summer from 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.