Zipper dress

Designer Sebastian Errazuriz created this dress out of 120 zippers. I dig the idea of reconfigurable clothing that isn't ugly. Zipper Dress (Britannica.com, thanks Alex Pang!)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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sswaan

That isn’t ugly?

I’m with Xopher, it’s an ugly dress. If I were wearing it, you’d see that. But I’m not a supermodel.

I love the idea of convertible clothing that’s not ugly too. But give me something I can use, people.
Marshall

I’ve made clothing with serious lengths of zippers so that it can come apart or be more easily gotten into or out of, and I’ll tell you, anyone wearing this better be wearing another dress underneath, or they’re in for some serious potential pain.
Daemon

#37 – what, you expect the fashion industry to start making clothing for people with typical builds now?
seijihyouronka

1. First — “slutty”? Really? The last time I heard someone use “slutty” in that context I was standing at a crosswalk with a bunch of teenage girls. It’d be irritating if it weren’t so infantile.

2. I think the dress is neat.

3. I think she’s attractive, and have no idea as to whether she’s built that way or starves herself, or if the truth lies on some continuum between the two. Or another continuum between fluorescent light bulbs and broccoli. No one here knows, either; at best, they know whether the models they’ve known/been/whatever have starved themselves. I don’t think that’s very convincing evidence!

4. I suspect this is just for novelty’s sake, not that the designer intends for people to “slut” it up at the grocery store in it.
Anonymous

If the model-though pretty-stood sideways and stuck out her tongue, she’d look like a zipper too!

Suzanne in CT
Antinous / Moderator

Her BMI is probably right where it should be for optimal health. She has muscle and breast tissue. She’s not anorexic.

It amazes me that people who would never walk up to a fat person and say, “Moo” will walk up to a thin person and say, “You look like a corpse.”
Anonymous

#41 “will walk up to a thin person and say, “You look like a corpse.”

I’ve gotten remarks like that no less than a million times in my life. It gets sort of old after a while, and you tend to run out of enough appropriate responses. People think you’re on a crash diet when one day you just feel like eating a tuna sandwich and not a cheeseburger. Maybe some people are just naturally skinny?! It’s not like we haven’t tried to put on weight. Don’t hate on us. Ah, feels good to vent all that frustration. :P

PS: I think the model looks fine. The dress, quite ingenious.
Anonymous

I’m glad someone else mentioned Cat Chow!
Onigorom

Just in case anyone is interested in more than the girl model: This design already has been created in 1977 by a German fluxus artist/theoretician. It is explained as a theoretical object that illustrates the logic of dialectics. http://bazonbrock.de/werke/werkansicht_text.php?wid=54&cid=423 (no image though)
Anonymous

Thanks Antinous. I’m all for pointing out that models are almost all on the thin and tall end of the bell curve and it’s a silly beauty standard to expect all women to conform to, but as a tall and thin girl I get kind of tired of people taking one look at girls who have a similar body type as mine and going, “Get her a cheeseburger!”

People say that to me all the time. I try to take them up on the offer, but I have yet to find someone who actually wants to buy me food.
Anonymous

That model is super yummy.
trieste

http://www.meetsebastian.com/english/ (Flash site)

In the Fashion section you can see more shots plus the back which would suggest you wouldn’t lie down anytime soon.
Teller

Not to be worn on a hot day I think.
Xopher

I’ve never heard anyone do that to a thin person. I would be shocked, and probably I’d say something to anyone who was so rude.

I think it. I say it about e.g. Kate Moss and other public figures.

I guess we have a cultural assumption that thin is voluntary and fat is not. Pretty stupid when you come to think of it.
Anonymous

or a cold one, apparently!
Vaxjo Aberg

There are more pictures on the designs Flash site:
http://www.meetsebastian.com/english/
(Click on “Limited Editions | Fashion | Dress N3)

Includes some other un-zipped styles and a shot of the back (as requested by Bret). Of course it’s not practical. It’s art! Y’all complainers are aware of “art” aren’t you?
Anonymous

if they were plastic zippers it would eliminate the hot/cold fact and the discomfort
mappo

Nor straight from the dryer.
PennySerenade

Order that dress from China, bring it to France, multiply 120 by 15 Euros and you’ll have the amount of money that will disappear from your bank account since the first thing that gets rotten in China clothes are the zippers!
Sparrow

It doesn’t look all that bad, especially the middle picture, but I’m sure it would be uncomfortable. If it’s so reconfigurable, I’d like to see some straps on the tube top, otherwise, all those zippers would be a bit heavy. It does have kind of a glam punk vibe, and I’m sure with all those metal zippers, it could double as armour, as long as no-one slashed perfectly parallel.
ridl

So nobody else thinks the torso to waist ration is too strange to be real? Hmm. Maybe she’s arching her back or sucking in really hard or somesuch. Looks off to me.

I like the dress, especially the photo on the site with a bunch of the zippers partially open. Mmmmm…. provocative.
Anonymous

Wow, as a 98% gay geek, I am overwhelmed by the fashion and the function.

The other 2% of me is just distracted and impressed.

But with thoughts of hot, cold, or just thinking about how painful zippers can be, the practical side of me which runs through 100% now can’t stop thinking of all the unfortunate accidents that could happen. I’m afraid my practical nature speaking so loudly over my sexual side is proof that I’m just getting old. My self from 15 years ago really would be shocked at what an old sexless man I’ve become.
subhan

That model needs a cheeseburger or something. She looks too frail to bear the weight of all that zipper!
GregLondon

the chaffing from all the metal zipper teeth must be horrible.
InsertFingerHere

I’m bookmarking that page under “Spank Bank” !
David Carroll

More zippers please!
Patrick Austin

Yeah, that looks super practical. You can go from “kinda slutty” to “totally slutty” or anywhere in between.
maxoid

@cynicaldrunk #54:
also a mid-20′s, 5’10″, 150lb dude here. no THC intake here, but no trouble with the ladies, and i receive no real commentary in general on my build. might be because it’s a pretty average size to be here in PDX, i don’t know. i did have an office job in the ‘burbs once, though, where i was the only dude of healthy weight for a time. bossman (300lb 6’3″) made cracks daily about this, but he was also racist and sexist. came with the territory.

zipper dresses are way hotter in person, i have to say, even if the wearer isn’t a supermodel. she has to be able to dance, is the main thing. the way it moves is the best part about it.

and the model totally sells the idea, without moving at all. that’s efficient, i’d say. and welcome.
Bret

I wonder what the back looks like with all the zipper pulls
drewish

i’d also like to see the back, i’m picturing a bunch of zipper hangers that don’t line up. and how would you keep the pieces in the right order? if they’re not numbered it seems like you’d end up with something that never fit the same way twice… kind of reminds me of the rubix cube that i bought and never solved.
archanoid

I dig the idea of “reconfiguring” the model.
Takuan

do they make fine texture velcro?
aaooeeie

Nothing new under the sun. Carol Channing wore (and removed) a spiral-zipper dress in “Skidoo” – in 1968.
Falcon_Seven

She took off the wrong parts.
JDavid

@#10…

Yes. This is what we want. This is good.

and @#1…
Yes, yes she certainly is.
trr

Brittanica.com? So that’s an encyclopedia entry?
wtf.
merreborn

Shaving is mandatory.
tahewitt

Artist Cat Chow did the same thing several years ago (and it’s a better looking dress):
http://www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org/manufractured/artists/chow.html
mellowknees

@#41: “It amazes me that people who would never walk up to a fat person and say, “Moo” will walk up to a thin person and say, “You look like a corpse.”

You might actually be surprised how many people say things to fat people. Having been fat all of my life, I can attest to the fact that it happens ALL OF THE TIME.

@#43: “I guess we have a cultural assumption that thin is voluntary and fat is not. Pretty stupid when you come to think of it.”

Totally and completely. I will concede that fat *is* voluntary on some level, but most people who are fat have three choices:

1) Reasonably control what we eat, get a moderate amount of exercise like most “normal sized” people do, and stay chubby all of our lives.

2) Starve ourselves and exercise for excessive periods on a near-daily basis so that we can get down to “normal size”.

or

3) Eat what we want/get no exercise and remain fat.

It’s a LIFE LONG STRUGGLE for many people. People who have never had a weight problem have no idea. It affects every aspect of your life if you’re fat, and it’s very, very difficult to deal with. People who are naturally thin/athletic have no idea how hard it is, much like how I have no idea what it must be like to be naturally thin and athletic.
Manooshi

This is not an original idea. But it’s cool that someone brought it back, regardless of whether the zippers would pinch the shit outta your skin or not. It’s hot. It’s fun. It’s art. Not function. Not practicality.

Oh, and BTW, I’m a tall and thin (and broke) chick. Anyone wanna buy me food: GREAT!

Please do.
Antinous / Moderator

I’m 6’2″ and weighed 133 – 143 lbs (60 – 65 Kg) until I was almost 40. I ate six big meals per day, exercised a lot. Healthy.

People would incessantly say, “You look like a cadaver”, “Are you alright? No really are you alright?” or “Are you sick?” On the plus side, if I went into the bakery for a brioche, they always gave me a half dozen for the price of one, and the ice cream place always supersized me for free.
Takuan

out of innocent curiosity and purely high minded reasons of advancing academic research into the mores and various social behaviours of primates; are there any females that read BB that are depraved enough to experience occasional bouts of lascivious carnal desire fueled by scantly clad images of the opposite sex? It seems to we may be under-serving part of the community and perhaps something ought to be done about that.
Gainclone

>>#33 MELLOWKNEES

>You can see 100 chicks who look almost identical to her on every other page on the interwebs…

There is a reason for that.
Anonymous

I dig the idea of reconfigurable clothing that isn’t ugly too! Maybe someday we’ll see some, but today is not that day.

ALTERNATIVELY:

Wait, you’re saying there are clothes in those pictures? Because I’m with #15 in being with #1 and #10.
bbonyx

I consider BB to be one of the more erudite (at least culturally) sites that I visit… so it makes me feel good when I see posts like #1, #8, #10, #14, #15 and #18.

Ahhhh… My brethren. :)

And yes, that model… with her I would like to do things that we would *both* enjoy.
Church

Dress? There’s a dress involved here?
Anonymous

#23…hahaha i just laughed out loud.
blueelm

That looks really uncomfortable. Nipple torture, hair removal, humidity, and compression of all the soft bits… all in one tacky godawful contraption. But we’ll stick it on a hot girl so you won’t notice.

Why bother with the dress?
dculberson

“Nipple torture, hair removal, humidity, and compression of all the soft bits”

Oh man, quit it – you’re turning me on.
ridl

Ugh. Unhealthy skinny. Perhaps photoshopped to inhumanely skinny?
Anonymous

That model is too beautiful…
grahamers

To get the rest off you have to go stare at the optical illusion in the previous post (or a later post, but close to this post) and then come back here and stare at her.
Anonymous

Grumblefish

Skinny people are real people too. It is so hard for me to find clothing that actually fits me. I am a naturally thin individual, I love food but I am very active.

Just saying. =]
blueelm

“Oh man, quit it – you’re turning me on.” Well… if you wanna wear the dress, ya’ know.
remmelt

@54: you’re doing it wrong. I’m taller than you are (6’2″ or so) and the same weight, and although I get called skinny (a lot) girls seem to like me fine enough.

As to the model, I thought she was kind of skinny as well. Seen worse, though.
Moriarty

Wildly impractical, but surprisingly attractive and not even unconventional looking.

Also, people: She’s a model. Models are tall and thin, and so is this one, but I don’t see how you could say she’s “unhealthily skinny”. Don’t worry, ladies: If she’s healthy and attractive doesn’t make you fat for having a different body type, so there’s no need to put her down. Men dig all types of women, and while I personally can appreciate the gazelle-like beauty in clothes hangers, they’re not even near the top of my list.

[And so Moriarty strikes another blow for feminism.]
Grumblefish

Ah well, here we are again – clothes designed for the shape of the model, rather than for real people. Of course, as this is the fashion equivalent of the concept car, condemning the style for not fitting pear-shaped women is about as useful as complaining a concept car wouldn’t fit in your garage, or would have trouble with speed bumps.

Healthiness of model – hard to tell, of course, but she doesn’t look as unhealthy as many do. Tall and skinny appearance doesn’t put me off as long as they also look like they could run a marathon.
blueelm

“Also, people: She’s a model. Models are tall and thin, and so is this one, but I don’t see how you could say she’s “unhealthily skinny”. ”

As a former model I hate to tell you, but most of them aren’t healthy or anything like healthy. Just sayin’
Tenn

150lbs, 5’10″, and I am constantly asked “Why?”, usually by women, and god forbid I can fit my lankiness into skintight’s they haven’t worn since the fucking moon shot; some broad even called me disgusting.

My cousin is 6’4″ and 125 pounds. His little (14 yr old) brother is 5’5 and 100 pounds or so.

Me, I’m 5’0 and 120 pounds. You tall, lanky folk aren’t disgusting, we women are just jealous. And yeah- try to off the THC for a while and see what happens. You’d be surprised.
V

Could make for a long and infuriating striptease…
Xopher

I think the dress is ugly.

I think the skirt and tube she converts it into is uglier still.

I’m a gay man, so of course the model does nothing for me, but I do wish I had abs that tight.

I feel sorry for her having to wear something so unattractive and at the same time so obviously uncomfortable. As a humiliation device I suppose it has potential; as actual clothing, not so much.
adamnvillani

It amazes me that people who would never walk up to a fat person and say, “Moo” will walk up to a thin person and say, “You look like a corpse.”

Right, because nobody is ever mean to fat people.
Takuan

no, because frequently fat people have huge muscles underneath and will snap their insolent pencil necks. Not to say some skinny folk ain’t snake-bite fast and twice as mean though.
Moriarty

“As a former model I hate to tell you, but most of them aren’t healthy or anything like healthy. Just sayin’

You know, somehow I doubt that you really did hate to tell me that.
blueelm

“You know, somehow I doubt that you really did hate to tell me that.”

I’m pretty avoidant so yeah. It kind of felt icky. I don’t talk about it much really, because I pretty much am always afraid of reactions like yours. That’s ok though.
cynicaldrunk

Okay, gotta add my 2 grams from a skinny ass 22y/o dude’s perspective. I’m about 150lbs, 5’10″, and I am constantly asked “Why?”, usually by women, and god forbid I can fit my lankiness into skintight’s they haven’t worn since the fucking moon shot; some broad even called me disgusting.

Albeit I digress, the skinniness end of the spectrum carries just as much stigma as obesity for those of us who cannot control it. I eat like a human waste machine and usually have perpetual munchies from perpetual THC intake– to no avail. I’ve been shunned by countless women for fucked reasons because I’m thin, and haven’t even touched a girl in 4 years because they show no interest in me and frankly I’ve lost all hope in them.

Meh, but I guess that’s why I’m a cynical drunk, eh?!
Takuan

“perpetual THC intake”? As an experiment, abstain for six months and see what happens.
mellowknees

Hmmm…interesting idea, but all I keep thinking of are those dorky pants you used to be able to get from places like Banana Republic (back when they actually sold OUTDOORSY clothes and not trendy clothes) that have legs you can zip off to convert them to even dorkier shorts!

Also…really? Is she that hot? She looks like every other chick in advertising to me. Nothing remarkable there. But then, I’m female, I’m straight, and I tend to think that people who look non-mainstream are much more attractive than those who do.

But really…I want to know…what’s so captivating about her? You can see 100 chicks who look almost identical to her on every other page on the interwebs…
Anonymous

The model is YUM
The dress is not so impressive.
Anonymous

She could be wearing zippers, snaps or really anything for that matter. Cool idea; for the masses, probably not. Maybe spandex in between the zippers… for me at least.
wanion

That outfit seems designed for wardrobe malfunctions.
Also, here’s what she’s saying from left to right:
1.”Hey, tiger, want to party?”
2.”Nobody saw the gravy stains, right?”
3.”I hope this stays up.”
AnjaFlower

@Patrick Austin, #10:
I suppose that if an equivalent garment would be made for men, you would consider it a garment of “player”-osity, useful for showing off one’s ripping abs in order to attract brainless, sycophantic women, convinced by the society in which they live that being submissive to men was the only option and the “natural” order of things?

Watch the double-edged sword there, buddy, you might just cut yourself.

-a proud, responsible “slut.”
wanion

@#35, Anjaflower:
Except for the words I didn’t understand, you’re right! That model is a total slut.
Plus, I wish they made something like that for men to show my ripping abs!