Flirt Suit

Date: January 2015
Materials: 3D Printed Molds, Silicon, Arduino

The project focuses on the dating culture that has developed from internet dating websites and apps. The process of dating has become very passive and non-confrontational. The envisioned garments are critical of these new age courting rituals. The garments or garment accessories that would react to involuntary stimuli from the wearer and trigger an external change or visual cue to onlookers. The designs, inspired by courtship rituals found in nature, would be interactive and interdependent on each other. When one reacts the other reacts to it.  Using environmental sensors, the visual display would be triggered by the passive events in dating culture which are subtle and intimate, such as a “match” notification on a mobile dating app such as Tindr. A series of pneumatic actuators have been developed to respond to the electronic stimuli and release pheromones into the environment around the user.

The suit questions our use of social media. It draws attention to the vulnerability that we are willing to place ourselves in and highlights the constant editing of social profiles that we use as masks of our true selves.