My top tingled but didn’t make me cooler

AT The Directa Plus office on a science park near Lake Como, the company’s scientists bombard me with heatmap images and graphs showing how their prototype running top keeps you cooler during exercise, by conducting away heat rapidly.

But days later, back in London on a sunny May morning, does it make a marked difference on my three-mile jog into work? I’m not sure.

There is certainly an odd sensation every time you jog out of the shade into the sunshine, or catch a cool breeze. The temperature change tingles through the lightweight jersey.

But at the end of my half-hour run I can’t say I feel noticeably cooler than I usually would.

The company is experimenting with screen printing graphene on to various fabrics. The prototype feels a little too synthetic for comfort.

But even if this item isn’t a runaway success, graphene clothing has other attributes that could prove valuable.

Graphene can be flame-retardant, and Directa Plus is working with partner Alfredo Grassi to make clothes for firefighters.

Its conductivity could be significant in the growing area of ‘wearable’ gadgets, which monitor your body’s performance for review after exercise.

It is ‘bacteriostatic’ too, meaning your gym kit won’t smell as bad after a workout. The jersey I tested certainly needs fewer washes than a normal top.

Directa Plus and other companies developing uses for graphene are racing to get all of these applications to market, with the jeans due to go on sale early next year. Other products are imminent.

British consumers will not have long to wait to check the bold claims made for this wonder material for themselves.