Air Reimagined: Nike’s Therma-FIT Air Milano Jacket Redefines Adaptive Outerwear

By Jason Neal

Nike has spent nearly five decades perfecting the art of Air, a technology that has defined athletic performance across generations. Now, that same innovation is taking flight in an entirely new way. The Therma-FIT Air Milano Jacket introduces A.I.R. (Adapt. Inflate. Regulate.), a groundbreaking system that allows athletes to control their warmth on demand without the need for extra layers. When Team USA steps onto the medal podiums in Milan this winter, they’ll be wearing more than a jacket—they’ll be wearing the future of intelligent outerwear.

The Air Milano Jacket transforms Nike’s iconic cushioning system into a responsive layer of insulation. Using inflatable and deflatable baffles built directly into the fabric, wearers can shift seamlessly from hoodie-light warmth to the equivalent of a mid-weight puffer in seconds. It’s a balance of science and intuition, where air pressure replaces padding, and adaptability replaces compromise. Danielle Kayembe, Nike’s apparel product innovation expert, describes the design as “a new and exciting era in Nike’s legacy of Air—where athlete science and data-driven design come together to create responsive, engineered garments that drive performance.”

Every detail of the jacket was refined through years of research and computational design. Nike’s Sport Research Lab collected extensive data on how athletes react to cold environments, mapping the human body’s heat zones to determine exactly where inflation chambers should be placed. The result is a garment that intelligently distributes warmth where it’s needed most while maintaining flexibility and freedom of movement. The two-layer composite material used throughout is both soft and durable, allowing the garment to expand and contract without losing shape or performance integrity.

What makes the Air Milano truly revolutionary is its departure from the limitations of traditional insulation materials like down or synthetic fill. Those materials depend on horizontal construction, which restricts design potential and traps air unevenly. By using air itself as a design medium, Nike’s engineers have freed outerwear from those structural boundaries. The jacket’s sleek, sculpted lines are a product of digital precision—each chamber calibrated to balance insulation, aesthetics, and breathability. Amie Achtymichuk, Nike’s lead apparel innovator, calls it “a living innovation—every detail engineered to let athletes personalize their comfort and redefine what performance outerwear can be.”

The Air Milano Jacket is part of Nike’s larger Functional Innovative Technologies (FIT) ecosystem, which includes Therma-FIT for insulation, Aero-FIT for cooling, Dri-FIT for moisture management, and Storm-FIT for weather protection. Each works in harmony to keep athletes performing at their best regardless of conditions. It’s an approach that treats apparel as equipment—tools that adapt in real time to movement, temperature, and energy output.

Nike’s fascination with air-based apparel began decades ago, from the experimental ACG Airvantage jacket to the ISPA Adapt Sense Air project. Each iteration brought the company closer to realizing a wearable system capable of active climate control. The Air Milano represents the culmination of that journey—a synthesis of fashion, function, and futuristic engineering.

With this latest innovation, Nike has not only expanded the definition of Air but reimagined the relationship between body and environment. The Therma-FIT Air Milano isn’t simply outerwear—it’s an evolution of performance itself, a symbol of how technology and design can breathe together to create something alive, intelligent, and unmistakably modern.