Fashion

July 17 2006
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The inflatable dress (or 'Wearable Space') is, as the name describes, a garment that inflates into a personal space to sleep, rest or play within. 

Nomadic is the current state of the urban dweller, a kinetic lifestyle that is constantly changing, operating from and traveling to many locations.  We navigate these many locations with our bodies, wearing traditional garments, and transitioning between built environments.  Wearable space is a structure that challenges the segregation of garment and built environment, attempting to fuse ideas of clothing, mobility, space and place while articulating the sameness of garment and shelter, in that both are structures interacting and enfolding the body at different proportions.

These ideas where manifested into a structure for modern nomadic urban travelers that experience life in transition between places, this garment therefore allows them to negotiate urban and natural terrains with clothing that transforms into a temporary comfortable abode to rest in while moving through transitional areas or temporary situations.

Wearable space is a bi-functional piece that interacts with the body and designates comfort zones; it is the ability to bring personal space with you. The first of its’ functions is as a dress, which has a close, intimate spatial relationship with the body. The garment then inflates, transforming and growing around the body into a small, temporary-pneumatic structure for one or more bodies to use as a sleeping/activity pod.  These structures can then be combined to create larger communities, growing infinitely in all directions. by Colleen Coghlan (our new L.A based coolhunter)