Modular Pleated Lights

photos: Karin Demeyer
model: Sarah Nesbitt
XSLabs, directed by Joanna Berzowska, with Marc Beaulieu and Marguerite Bromley

Modular Pleated Lights is a dress integrating animated photonic band-gap fibers and silk woven strips. The modulable pleats allow the possibility to conceal or reveal the light shining from the internal part of the dress. This cocktail dress presents a silhouette that combines organic shapes with contrasting origamic structure, referring to the natural and artificial properties of the light.

Combined to black waxed cotton and mat bamboo jersey, the photonic band-gap fiber and silk strips are creating a textured effect when light up. The leds are emitting a light that is reflected, transformed and animated through the pleats. The wearer can interact with this animation by hiding the luminous structure, concealing it inside her second skin, or revealing the luminosity by unfolding the pleats and showing, at various levels, the ongoing animation.

The volume created by the bottom right of the dress is implemented by the printed circuit board and which is controlling and empowering the system.