Process

The goal of this garment was to affect how the wearer interacted with strangers. I was inspired by the defense mechanisms animals use when threatened, specifically puffer fish. This idea materialized into a jacket with two states: one inconspicuous, one intimidating. My initial prototyping played with spikes, but for the final piece I went with an expanding neck with pops of color. The neck inflates with a hand pump located in the jacket pocket, and the neck fabric folds such that the red pieces are hidden when it is inflated.