Back in the ancient times when I regularly read science fiction, a common trope was that people would wear clothing that appeared immediately, the fabric emerging from some device and forming around the body. I don’t mean body paint, but more like an instant dress.
It’s here. It’s real. Well, at least for a fashion model on the runway. The fabric equivalent sprays on and looks like body paint but appears to harden into flowing fabric that’s separate from the body. It has to be seen to be believed. I’m putting a Youtube video of the event - only a minute long - into spoilers because it is obviously NSFW.
OK, it may not be new. I did some digging and found the inventor, a Dr. Manel Torres, who invented “Fabrican” a full decade ago. (That link is safe.) A quick search here didn’t bring up his name. With Bella Hadid as the runway subject, though, the dress is making big news and I bet it’s on everybody’s news feed in the next day or two.
I can’t figure out whether this is the start of something big, like 3-D printing, or just an expensive gimmick like molecular gastronomy. Torres seems legit as a scientist and the idea of instant form-fitting clothing that can be broken down and reused is exciting.
Lots of questions. How durable is it? Can it do normal outside wear? How many layers for privacy? How does it get redone? What if gets in your eyes? Can it ever hit the mass market? That’s the problem with sf: all the questions are answered off-page in the stroke of a key.
I’m not sure how they got the lower part of the dress to span the gap between her legs, rather than ending up as a pair of leggings. Was that entirely accounted for by spraying from the sides? And would it result in a comfortable surface for the inside of the dress?
Also, how did she avoid getting it all over her hands?
Looks like a lot of cutting and trimming was done to get the final product after the spraying. It may not be sticking to her skin like paint, just sticking to itself so it hangs down to make the skirt and maybe could be removed and reused intact in theory.
nd [not to be fat shaming exaclty, that would be the pot calling the kettle black] if one were not absolutely model skinny twig, it would show every single lump and bump and look horrific. I mean, if I were to do that, you would see every flab roll and my P’Tit Joey [I named my stoma, and hold conversations with him] Yikes.
It’s hard to imagine it ever having general use, but I can see some possible narrow applications. For instance, in medicine, there’s often good reason to remove a patient’s clothes, but you might have reason to give them something to wear (particularly in an emergency). And being stored in a can, it should be totally sterile. It might also serve as an instant bandage for awkward locations. Or, in space, where weight and volume are at a premium, you can have a few sets of replacement clothes available without needing to specialize them for a given body shape.
Spray-on skin has developed as a treatment for burns victims in the past few years [although that term over-simplifies what is still a very complex series of medical processes and treatments].
It’s just a fancy latex spray. In that sense, it’s a tech that’s very old. After all, the MAya made temporary latex shoes by dipping their feet into it.
Me, I think way more sci-fi is 3D-printed clothing. Especially the reactive kind:
The Black Panther comic debuted in 1966. Did the necklace he wore generate clothing that far back, or did that not appear in anything related to the Black Panther until the 2018 comic? Exapno_Mapcase said that “Back in the ancient times when I regularly read science fiction, a common trope was that people would wear clothing that appeared immediately, the fabric emerging from some device and forming around the body.” Are there any examples of this trope from back in that time?
Yes, that video left a lot of questions. For all we know they cut out two hours while the dress dried and they shaped it. Very interesting product. I wonder how expensive it is and what the learning curve is.
The Flash has a ring that contains his costume. Not sure when that started, not really a fan.
