The fashion tech designer Anouk Wipprecht unveiled, yesterday, two new dresses sensitive to the presence of others, thanks to thermal and proximity sensors. Discover them here.

By Ludmilla Intravaia

After the Spider dress and the Smoking dress, Anouk Wipprecht continues her research begun in 2007 on cultural distance, with the Proximity dress inspired by proxemics, theory developed, from the 1960s, by the American anthropologist Edward T. Hall on the relationship of man to the surrounding space.

Anouk Wipprecht, at Weareable Lab, in Villepinte, February 8, 2017 (© Lionel Samain for Le Boudoir Numérique 2020)

Yesterday, the Dutch electronic couture designer published a video presenting two models of dresses, whose mobile panniers, reminiscent of Marie-Antoinette's hoop skirts, in a fashion tech way this time, keep people in the immediate vicinity of the wearer at bay. “These twin dresses respond based on proximity and thermal sensors and indicates strangers within the intimate, personal, social and public space around the wearer. Each dress extends itself using robotic 3D printed hip mechanism build into the dress and a resin 3D printed transparent collar with the sensors”, says Anouk Wipprecht in her explanatory text accompanying the video (images below : ©Anouk Wipprecht).