Designer Dress That Changes Color in Response to Pollution?

In the publicity stunt section, as mentioned on CNN and others, Danish fashion house Diffus has created a designer dress (pictured; photo courtesy Diffus) that changes color in response to levels of pollution. (It actually changes color in response to CO2 levels. As this is fairly constant outdoors, it might not have been the most inspired pollutant to monitor — NO2, NO, CO and dust would all have been more interesting.)

Interested readers with a fashion bent can build their own. You need an Arudino open-source hardware board (some sample projects for incorporating Arudino projects can be found here. Then, all you need is an Air Quality Egg Arudino shield kit, which can be purchased from WickedDevices. This can monitor CO, NO2, and NO, with add-ons available for dust, VOC, and Ozone pollutants. (Arudino shields for CO2 are avaiable from other suppliers.) Once you’ve completed your electronics prototype, it’s time to become a fashion designer: there are small “Arudino-like” boards that are designed to be woven into fabrics, like the Adafruit Gemma.

We suspect the main practical use of Diffus’ pollution-monitoring clothing is that it garners a lot of press. The photos of fashion models are much more pleasing to readers than a photo of a Dylos sensor or learning about another bad air day in Los Angeles or in New York City suburbs … or Shanghai.

That being said, we’ve pointed out that’s not that hard (at least from the electronics point of view) to make something like this yourself from kit components. Maybe we’ll make this a fashion blog yet.

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