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

Party balloon? Couture? Both?

By Emily Engle - June 3, 2019

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?

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

Mark H

a year ago

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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.

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- Glen Oomen
  
  Mark H
  
  11 months ago
  
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  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.
  
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Emily Engle

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Emily is a freelance writer based in NYC with an interest in all things design, specifically the design process. When she's not writing about design, Emily can either be found taking care of her 31 houseplants, going on "nature" walks in her neighborhood or studying Japanese. Before going freelance, Emily was an Editor at Core77.