The Oddee website creates top-ten lists featuring topics ranging from the world’s strangest bugs to the most bizarre bodily functions. (The site is easy to get lost in and can become quite the procrastinator’s best friend, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
Recently Oddee created another list of what they consider the top-ten weirdest dresses. This was actually a follow-up to their previous list of top-eleven weirdest dresses here.
These dresses prove that inspiration can spark anywhere from the kitchen to the woodshop. Here are a few highlights from their round-up:
Memory of Beijing-Suitdress by Li Xiaofeng
For more of Li Xiaofeng’s work, click here. The dress is made entirely from Blue and White Porcelain from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The pieces are sewn together using silver thread.
The Bubelle Dress by Philips
Just like the mood rings we all had as kids, the Bubelle Dress changes colors with your mood. The dress is made up of two layers: the inner layer contains biometric sensors that pick up a person’s emotions and projects them in colors onto the second layer.
The Bubelle dress was was designed by Philips and works by monitoring physical changes associated with different feelings. Emotions like stress, arousal, or fear affect the body’s temperature and sweat levels and these generate the light that changes the pattern and color on the dress.
The Video Dress by Hussein Chalayan
Video may have killed the radio star, but it appears to still be friends with the fashion world.
Innovative fashion designer Hussein Chalayan created these dresses that have an interlining of sorts housing 15,000 LED lights that portray videos. The videos used on the dresses were a time lapse of a rose opening and closing, in a spectacular display of color and light.
The dress made its debut at the Milan Design Fair.
The Tax Form Dress by Britt Savage
While most tax protesters this year were attending “tea parties,” Britt Savage decided to make her feelings known in a different way–she cut up her tax forms, wove them together, and created a wearable work of art. The project started as a dress to wear on stage with her band and took her about a month to complete.
The Phonebook Dress by Jolis Paons
This amazing dress was created by Jolis Paons using paper from phonebooks for Creative Process. Jolis doesn’t know how to sew, but loves fashion so she makes her creations in a different way.
The Birdcage Dress by Kasey McMahon
Kasey McMahon built this dress with wire and many other out-of-the-ordinary materials.
The Wooden Dress by Grace Johnston
This dress was made by Grace Johnston in Louisiana for the Uncommon Threads Wearable Art Fashion Show in Baton Rouge (and she won!) From the artist:
“The entire corset is made of laminated wood, and the skirt is made of bent wood. It’s held together with bolts, etc. and I made an under dress out of pantyhose. The entire premise of this dress is that it can curtsy. All you do is pull on the rings on either side of the corset (you can vaguely see them) and the cables make the skirt rise up.”
Li Xiaofeng's 'Memories of Beijing' suitdress is strongly reminiscent of the jade suits the Emperors were buried in...
These designs are fabulous. How do people come up with ideas like this, incredible. I wish I was half this creative.
I can remember the designers name, there's a coffee table book on his work. I the late 90's he made a coffee table dress similar to the last one in the article, I'm wondering if he's her inspiration? He was also know for his chair slipcovers that turned into dresses. I personally have made a jacket out of bottle caps http://www.flickr.com/photos/8675738@N04/755245352/in/set-72157616634494998/ and want to make a dress eventually.
Utterly fascinating! Not only are these unique, but beautifully crafted. Truly an art form.
Li Xiaofeng's art is creative, exquisite and whimsical.
Bravo!
A on-line friend from burdastyle.com, PrutsPrinses, saw my post and let me know his name is Hussein Chalayan. http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/chalayan.html you can see his coffee table dress here from his collection in 2000.