It's a little late in the summer, but as you sweltered through those heat waves in June, July and August, you may have dreamed of something like this. It turns out they not only exist, but you can actually buy them. They're air conditioned clothes, an innovation out of Japan that will not only leave you looking cool but feeling cool as well.

The shirts and jackets come from a company named Kuchoufuku - which oddly enough translates as "air conditioned clothes". How do they work? There are two tiny fans sewn into the back of the garments that are powered by a small rechargeable battery pack about the size of a pocket. The fans blow air across your skin, letting the sweat evaporate and keeping your otherwise warm form comfortable no matter what the outside temperature.

"Until now, air-conditioning implied cooling the entire room," explains company CEO Hiroshi Ichigaya. "Now, we can cool just the body." The clothes come in 10 styles and a number of colours and can be purchased on the Internet. So how much cold cash do you have to lay out for these cool clothes? Most cost about Cdn.$100.

Who buys these things? Ichigaya claims a lot of factory workers wouldn't be without them. Temperatures in some work spaces can reach into the upper 30s and even regular air conditioning can't do much to fight it. The company has been around for three years and has so far sold over 5,500 of the specialized suits. And now it's branching out - advertising an air conditioned bed. We'll leave all the obvious one liners to you.

In the meantime, the A/C garments are doing fine, but if you want one, beware of that age old question: 'does this make me look fat?' Because the clothes put out puffs of air, the answer is usually yes. And when the man who makes them finds resistance from his own family, you know that's not a selling point. "My daughter won't wear them," Ichigaya confesses. "Because the shape is no good."

A website showing off all the goods is in Japanese, but if you're curious about what the products look like, you can see them here.

Photo courtesy: Kuchoufuku