Core77

Transforming Balloon Outfits Take Over Central Saint Martins' BA Fashion Show

Party balloon? Couture? Both?

By Emily Suzuki - June 3, 2019

in Fashion Design | Design News

Meet Norwegian designer Fredrik Tjærandsen's collection for Central Saint Martins' BA Fashion Show. Whether you've seen seen the transforming outfits—part party balloon, part couture—all over your Instagram feed this past weekend or whether this is your first time hearing of such a thing, take a look:

We were excited to learn that in terms of material, each bubble is made from about five meters of natural rubber—not plastic. “The company I work with sources the rubber from Sri Lanka, working with local rubber growers; and the pieces are made as much as possible from plants," Tjærandsen told Vogue in a recent interview. After testing the rubber bubbles on himself many times before letting models inside, the designer continued that, “There’s been three occasions when I’ve been inside and it’s burst, which is like a very big balloon popping.”

One of the main concerns with these outfits besides the potential to pop has been the wearability: Can they be worn multiple times, and if so, how? According to Tjærandsen, the dresses are in fact re-wearable—in both bubble and dress mode—due to a latch system he created that enables deflation and inflation by the wearer multiple times. “There’s about two to three thousand liters of oxygen inside [each bubble]. A human breathes 480 liters of oxygen an hour, so you’ve got roughly three hours in the dress. I started inflating the dresses after the show started, so the models are not in the bubble for more than 30 minutes.”

Tjærandsen is keeping his latch system a secret for now, so we're curious to hear from our audience: How do you think these rubber bubble dresses work?

o

Favorite This
Q
3

Comment

Comments

Mark H

5 years ago

Z

1Z

Reply

Don't trust a designer about biology. As I understand it, the buildup of carbon dioxide is going to be a more pressing problem before the lack of oxygen.

!Report as spam
- Glen Oomen
  
  Mark H
  
  5 years ago
  
  Z
  
  Z
  
  Reply
  
  I'm both biologist and designer. [Worked in anatomy for 9 years, then switched into designing medical devices - conveniently, filters for critical care ventilation most recently.] Yup, it's the rising pressure of the exhaled CO2 which will, in turn, raise the blood CO2; blood pressure, breathing rate, heart rate etc until everything logically concludes. "Hypercapnia" is the term. In this case a wearers level of distress will become pretty evident so as long as they can get out of the things easily I guess they're OK. At least the wearer will be safely padded while having their inevitable seizure. Definitely not for fashion amateurs.
  
  More importantly, they just look like giant laproscopic hysterectomy simulators.
  
  !Report as spam
Dexter Laster

3 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

You’re wrong. To reduce this stands egregious price to Apple building things for the rich rather than the middle class is completely wrong. And obvious. Aston Martin and hublot make luxury items for rich people. Apple makes products for both middle and upper class people who in the former case are willing to spend outside the means and do it successfully. Their Disney+ service is competitively priced, and while their watches and laptops and phones are expensive ticket items, they aren’t absurdly more expensive than their competitors. And in some cases less. With this display, what you have is a extremely high end, high price item that no mainstream/traditional competitions are producing. And I simply think this is a case of what you said, it’s an item for a person who is extremely price indifferent when it comes to that device and to they make the assertion that if that person is willing to pay that much for the display. They’re willing to pay that much for the stand. But no one in their right minds wouldn’t say wtf, that stand is way, way overpriced. And it is. But the people who buy that monitor will have to buy that stand even if it’s outrageous. And it is outrageous. Maybe they’ll sell so few that they needed to make it that expensive to actually cover the costs of taking a bunch of expensive designers making it, and/or they just knew they could get away with it with the kind of people buying the monitor. Like $20k rims for a Lamborghini. Yes it’s ridiculous. But that’s the price you pay at that level. But it does NOT have to do with apple making products for the rich and mostly only the rich. If that was true they wouldn’t have the kind of market capital of VW in the auto maker market, but instead that of Ferrari. And don’t be surprised if they decided to make the next generation monitor stand half the price.

!Report as spam