Designer Developed a Shirt that Changes Patterns When Exposed to Air Pollution
Who knew fashion and air pollution quality monitoring system could ever meet? It’s artist and designer Nikolas Bentel, that’s who.
Nikolas Bentel (Source: Locies/pixabay)
After roaming around New York City, Bentel got the idea of wearing air quality monitors through a special fabric. With a touch of dyes, the t-shirts that Bentel made can detect three air pollutants – carbon monoxide, particle pollution, or radioactivity.
The Aerochromics t-shirts, as what he calls them, react to the surrounding air by changing colors, from a solid t-shirt to geometric patterns of sorts. In the Air Quality Index, under 100 is satisfactory. The fabric starts changing its colors at 60 from black to white, and at 160, which is already considered unhealthy, the pattern is fully revealed.
Under an environment with carbon monoxide and particle pollution, the patterns can be reverse; however, when in radioactive surroundings, the shirt design becomes permanent.
There are three variants of the shirts in design, giving an option for people into fashion.
Bentel says the shirts may come in handy if you want to track pollution changes in your immediate surroundings or get a read on the levels in countries you visit. He adds that he’d like to have people test the shirt and provide feedback, but at $500 a shirt (the nonreactive ones cost $90), Bentel also acknowledges that he probably won’t sell many.
Really, the endeavor is more of a statement. Nowadays, there are several ways for people to stay on top of their city’s level of air pollution—from websites that map global air pollution in real time to portable sensors and mobile apps. London is even planning out to roll out a robust air pollution warning system. Yet that information escapes the general public—and therefore isn’t on top of their list of priorities. “I want people to get more familiar with the fact that pollution is everywhere and that we will have to live with it if we don’t change our ways,” Bentel says, admitting that although he has an AQI on his phone, he barely checks it.
The hope is that the shirts will be a starting point. “One of the ways to get people to look at information,” Bentel says, “is to embed the technology into daily life, and into the objects they use every day.”
