- “Internet Dress” mixes human and robotic elements
- Designer Maximilian Raynor spent almost a month making this dress
- No, it’s not for sale
In a fusion of technology and haute couture, fashion designer Maximilian Raynor has revealed a dress as opposed to others.
Designed from 12,000 feet of recycled fiber optic cable, the 50 pound dress is a striking representation of the physical form of the internet.
The dress was created through a collaboration between Raynor and web hosting company Equinix.
The following in the footsteps of Chanel’s 2016 Data Center-themed-landing track show and IBM’s recent project that transforms Chip Fab Sounds into music, made the dress, codename Projectmax, its debut ahead of London Fashion Week and turned heads with its complicated and futuristic design.
A dress “made by the internet”
Raynor, known for designing avant-garde pieces for celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Chappell Roan, described the dress as “the personification of the Internet itself.”
He explained, “I imagined a character that is the embodiment of data – some robot, something human – emerged from a pile of wires to create this dramatic look.”
In addition to discarded internet cables, the dress uses metal nuts and bolts from Equinix’s 260 data centers in 33 countries.
Raynor spent 640 hours weaving together the stretchable, 25 kg of clothing, but it is not for sale and will not be reproduced and serves only as a statement.
“By bridging the gap between physically and virtually we wanted to create something tangible that acts as a unique speech point to highlight the many thousands of connections created by Equinix to support economies and communities every day,” Bruce Owen, Equinix’s EMEA president, Data Center Dynamics told.
“The design pays tribute to the physical infrastructure that makes up the Internet,” he added.
“Instead of a kind of strange magic or inexplicable force that just happens to work, it’s a physical, complicated network of cables, crossing of soil and sea and creation of physical compounds located in Equinix data centers all over the world.”
