The Naked Queen: Fashion Chameleonic

Fashion is always changing, sometimes goes in search of small details of previous decades. Renews, creates, invents and grows.  Who said that the advancement of technology was only in gadgets, discoveries in medicine, or a more powerful engine for a car, was clearly wrong! Clear pieces with transparencies are in! But have you ever heard about and invisible dress? Confused? Curious? Skeptical?  But it is true. Several tests have been conducted in other areas, and the Fashion Industry is not left behind!  Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Intimacy. This project allies fashion with technology and technology with intimacy.

This project started a couple of years ago, but is without a doubt a great development.  It started as an ambitious goal, but marked a position not only on the runways but on the fashion business as well.
This project started in 2009 by Studio Roosegaard and V2_Lab.  Maartje Dijkstra designed the first prototype for Intimacy White. But how does this technology work? The combination of interactive technology, wireless and smart foils made possible this see-through apparel. It reminds “The emperor’s new clothes” doesn’t it?
The company started by creating Intimacy white. If it’s invisible why call it white? It’s simple. The color of the garment changes due to the proximity or distance of the spectator, thereby determining the level of transparency. The social interaction is determinant for the garment mutation.

The research continued, and in 2010 Intimacy Black was created.  An upgrade was made, and the transparent could switch into black. Anouk Wipprecht designed this second serie of Intimacy dresses, and it explores the futurist desire of the women in the 22nd century.

In 2011 Studio Roosegaard presents ‘Intimacy 2.0’, or you could call it ‘the heartbeat dress’. “One dress changes colors to the beat of the wearer’s heart, becoming more transparent based on close encounters.”
In the words of the designer:
“It is a Fashion project exploring the relation between intimacy and technology.”

As you can see from the picture, the dress features a futuristic design. Even so, the company is inviting designers of haute couture to collaborate with this project to show how it can be applied in several situations, decades and styles.

We are used to garments with vibrant colors, with the perfect cut, on the perfect body. That’s what fashion is all about! Intimacy stands for a different status. It’s impossible to not be fascinated by Intimacy’s dresses. They are so outstanding, outrageous for some people but even so, it stands for the social relationship which we are in every single day.
And projects like this should emerge more often. Fashion designers should ally with other specialists in order to improve this Industry. Designers need to step outside their space of comfort, and look beyond the obvious. A person doesn’t need to go to the moon to leave a mark on this world. It’s with creations like this that we make history in Fashion.
It is important to refer that this invention is not mainly electronic due to the intelligent material that does most of the mutation.

Fashion is without a doubt an industry growing more and more as time passes by. Designers are becoming more adventurous and their hunger to triumph is becoming huge.
 There may be people thinking this dress is just impossible to dress. But in the future, who knows? Obviously this is not a dress for a very nervous person. It needs someone with attitude, will, comfort and confidence.

Is fashion becoming more unconventional, or is it just developing?
Technology is a huge part of what we are, not only as human beings, but also as citizens of the ‘Global Village’ we live in. Sociologists defend that technology and the new media are the extension of our skin, and that’s what this project is all about: making the theory live through fashion!  It’s important to see fashion as a dynamic thing, a ‘living’ thing full of colors, shapes and emotions. So why don’t transmit our real emotions through what we wear?
The control is no longer of the viewer but of the person being viewed. We live in a world which changed from analog into digital, from static into dynamic, and so does the way we see the world: it changed in a million ways. Not only physically but also in our minds. A creative mind is an ‘upgraded mind’.
This project stands for giving and taking, showing and hiding. It builds up the momentum. You need to hide something before showing it. This dress does both!

Intimacy dress must be seen not as a technology device, but yes and most importantly, as a communication device.

Love, Raquel Volz Bell de Aquino