BACK TO THE FUTURE. Following the performance of french singer Chris, in a jacket releasing swirls of smoke, on the scene of Cannes NRJ Music Awards last Saturday, Le Boudoir Numérique cannot resist to come back to the concept of electronic couture designer Anouk Wipprecht’s Smoke dress, in 2012.

By Ludmilla Intravaia 

The French singer Chris, formerly known as Christine and the Queens, made a splash last Saturday on the Cannes scene of the NRJ Music Awards, when her interpretation of her song La Marcheuse ended in a cloud of smoke, released by the short toreador jacket she was wearing (see video here)

Some fumaroles, not unlike those of a creation well known to fashion-tech lovers : the Smoke dress by Dutch designer Anouk Wipprecht, reacting to the influence of external environment, by projecting a smoke screen, when its living space is trespassed.

Champion of electronic couture, at the intersection of fashion and technology, Anouk Wipprecht is interested in "non-verbal interactivity through body-worn systems", as she explained in her interview to Le Boudoir Numérique in 2015. According to her, "fashion technology does not just ‘blink’ or ‘bleep’ but expresses who we are, how we feel and how we interact with the outside world".

Anouk Wipprecht made two versions of her Smoke dress : the first one with interactive media artist and researcher in wearable technology, Aduén Darriba Frederiks, in 2012 (see images below). 

The second, in  2013, in collaboration with designer Niccolo Casas and the belgian enterprise, specialised in 3D printing, Materialise (see images below).

Le Boudoir Numérique has itself been tempted by a cloud of steam, when dreaming about the future of fashion and beauty, Photographer Lionel Samain signed, in 2017, "Purunpurun on the go" from the series of images named Logical Creatures. A sauna in your face. Literally.