Now you don’t; now you see it…
Though your correspondent is certain that it’s no problem for any of you, Dear Readers, it’s a sad fact that the craft of exploratory romantic communication– flirting– is, for many, fraught with the risk of misunderstanding, as it all-too-often-unsuccessfully tries to avoid the Scylla and Charibdys of misbehavior and missed opportunity.
Well, benighted bar-goers need fret no more: Dutch designers Studio Roosegaarde, in collaboration with V2_Lab and fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht, have come to the rescue with a line of dresses that telegraph a girl’s interest– or lack thereof. Co.Design reports:
So say you meet some guy who sends your heart aflutter. The dress responds to your elevated pulse by growing transparent around the (already plenty skimpy) plunging neckline. Conversely, if he’s such a snooze that you’re about two seconds away from flat-lining, the dress stays opaque, sending an instant “no, thanks!”
The line, “Intimacy 2.0,” is a series of sensor-enabled cocktail dresses that expose more (indeed, ultimately rather a lot of) skin the more excited the wearer becomes; a combination of embedded sensors and conductive “smart foils” (that become see-through conducting electricity) do the trick… as demonstrated in this– suitable for the club, if NSFW– video:
Readers may have a friend who would be interested to know that the dresses are, in fact, on sale.
As we ponder the impact of static electricity, we might recall that it was on this date in 1811 that a very different take on courtship emerged: a first novel entitled Sense and Sensibility was published. At the time, only a handful of folks knew the identity of its creator– who was presented to the reading public on the novel’s title page as “a Lady.” But as the author’s work caught on, she began to publish under her real name– Jane Austen– and later got credit for her inaugural effort.
Title page from the first edition (source)