Twinkle, Twinkle Little LED Climate Change Dress

Fashion doesn't generally illicit deep-thinking contemplation or positive, world-changing effects because, for the most part, it is an industry born out of vanity and insatiable consumption. If you envision vapid models vogueing outrageously overpriced threads on the catwalks or ever-changing accessories and trends that play into our deeply embedded need for approval, you aren't alone. What once may have been a practical necessity that kept us warm and protected from the elements has in our modern times taken on a completely different life of its own. It now tends to reflect our perpetually fickle consumer tastes -- in fact, it seems as though we are inclined to replace our duds as frequently as we bring a new bag of household waste out to the curb.  

In all fairness, there are companies and designers out there that do earnestly attempt to infuse the fashion industry with a sense of philanthropy and eco-responsibility, using some of the profits raised from the sale of their goods to help benefit notable charitable causes or fund environmental restoration projects. However, can you imagine just one single dress making so much as a solitary ripple in our consciousness and potentially even prompting us to re-evaluate our lifestyles for the benefit of Mother Nature? The creative collaboration of Diffus, embroidery company Forster Rohner, the Allexandra Institute and the Danish Design School's Tine M. Jensen are all hoping that the answer to that question is a resounding YES with their "Climate Dress."  Recently unveiled at Copenhagen's Bright Green Expo, the asymmetrical spangled charcoal number -- accented with conductive embroidery and embedded with 100+ LEDs, a CO2 sensor and a Arduino Lilypad microprocessor -- reveals minor to increasingly dynamic levels of illumination depending upon how much carbon is present in the surrounding air space of the wearer.   

Michel Guglielmi and Hanne Louise Johannesen of Diffus explain that the dress generates an "aesthetic representation of environmental data" that gives spectators a hard-to-deny eco-visual, offering "disturbing stories wrapped into a comfortable and reassuring cocoon de luxe." The environmental paradox is that if much higher levels of CO2 are present, the fashion piece becomes even more beautiful and shimmery...and yet to really make an impact on our psyches, perhaps it would have made more sense for them to tweak the CO2 sensor so it would make the dress more dull and unattractive in the presence of higher levels of carbon dioxide. In any event, using fashion to reinforce consumer awareness regarding the pollution that we are breathing is certainly an eye opening technique that I believe could be used more frequently with great affect. It's one thing to understand the concept of global warming, but utilizing pop culture via fashion ends up speaking directly to the mainstream consumer with a message that's hard to wipe clean from our minds. If you witnessed a piece of clothing glowing brightly due to excessive CO2 in the atmosphere, how would it affect you?