Need to make a weighted vest look less intimidating

February 12, 2014 10:27 PM

I'm looking at purchasing a weighted vest for daily walks through the industrial park but frankly I think I'd look like I was planning to blow something up, or get shot at, or both. I'm looking for suggestions for making it look as innocent as it is. Spray paint it white? Wrap it in reflective tape? Incorporate it into a Darth Vader costume? Any and all ideas would be much appreciated.
posted by Tell Me No Lies to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (13 answers total)

Can you color it pink?
posted by Jacqueline at 10:30 PM on February 12, 2014

Wear it under your clothing?
posted by littlesq at 10:34 PM on February 12, 2014

It's for exercise, right? Do you sew? I'm thinking sew a cover for it and style it like athletic shoes. You know, big chunks of gaudy colors, reflective tape, mesh bits, go-faster stripes, the works.
posted by Mizu at 10:37 PM on February 12, 2014

Wear a big baggy t-shirt over it.
posted by ambrosia at 10:44 PM on February 12, 2014

If there's any chance you might be using it at dusk or in foggy/rainy weather as your outer (i.e. visible) layer, it should probably be made as reflective as possible, anyway.
posted by Sequence at 10:45 PM on February 12, 2014

If I saw you at the park wearing this, anything increasing visibility would make it obvious to me that you were exercising. 3M reflective tape comes on rolls but also little shapes (dots, triangles, etc.) about an inch across - I've put them on the back of a running shell and they stay on well.
posted by variella at 10:57 PM on February 12, 2014

If you can colour it bright orange or fluorescent yellow, I would assume you were some sort of maintenance person, rather than a bomber. You could do that with an extra reflective vest over the top (maybe tacked on with a few stitches here and there).
posted by lollusc at 12:00 AM on February 13, 2014

Wear something that's obviously exercise clothing, wear this on top, and you will at least look like you are not trying to hide anything. Maybe consider also wearing some really silly wrist and ankle weights on top of your exercise clothes to remind people that this is a thing people do for exercise.
posted by steinwald at 5:16 AM on February 13, 2014

Spandex. It's hard to be afraid of someone wearing spandex.
posted by goethean at 5:53 AM on February 13, 2014

How much weight are you really intending to carry? Do you really need 60lbs?

If you can get away with less, I strongly suggest you check out the Hyperwear Pro vest.

You control how much weight to put in the vest. Maximum weight loads are: Small (22lbs), Med.(24lbs), Large (34lbs), X-Large (48lbs) and XX-Large (64lbs)

I use a large with 20 pounds in it. The vest is sleek enough that it fits comfortably UNDER a sweatshirt and most casual observers would not even notice that I am wearing it. Also, the vest is designed extraordinarily well and is overall awesome quality.
posted by jameslavelle3 at 7:37 AM on February 13, 2014

I'd put a high-vis vest over the top of it. It makes you more visible, it's baggy and will cover it quite well, it looks 'official' so people won't ask questions, and whose ever heard of a terrorist wearing one of them.
posted by Ned G at 8:54 AM on February 13, 2014

How about a chainmail shirt? Not as heavy, but certainly not going to be mistaken for any sort of dangerous black vest device.
posted by jeribus at 12:11 PM on February 14, 2014

I'm afraid this turned out to be a trick question in the end. The answer is: you can't make that particular vest look any less intimidating.

I tried many of the suggestions here to no avail. In particular it's just too big to put something over it and increasingly large amounts of yellow reflective tape made me look like, and I quote "A giant bumblebee on his way to bomb something."

I'll need to find something a little more discreet.

Thank you to everyone for your ideas.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:39 PM on March 15, 2014