The latest in dresses from one Japanese designer is feather-light, see-through and comes with an unusual warning: watch out for needles.
It’s a dress made from balloons — 200 of them, to be exact.
The crystal-clear creation is the latest in balloon couture from balloon artist Rie Hosokai, who has won international prizes at Belgium’s annual “The Millennium Jam” balloon festival for her skill at twisting and weaving the light, latex toys into dresses.
“There are latitude and longitude balloons to be woven together, so it’s quite similar to fabric,” the 35-year-old Hosokai said recently, as she deftly manipulated balloons into a transparent mini-dress.
All the work is done by hand and Hosokai said it could be hard to account for the amount of air when adjusting the size and volume of the dress.
The garment, worn with white underwear and co-designed by Hosokai’s husband, Takashi Kawada, was modeled for photographers with the warning, “Watch out for needles.”
Despite the inexpensive materials, ¥7 (US$0.09) for each of the 200 balloons she used, the bubbly creation came with a price tag of well over US$1,000, reflecting Hosokai’s determination to puncture the stereotype of balloons being something cheap.
Most of Hosokai’s dresses carry price tags ranging from ¥150,000 to ¥300,000, but she has sold a set of balloon dress, headpiece and bouquet for ¥1 million.
Each dress lasts only 24 hours at most before it starts to deflate, while some change color depending on the temperature and humidity.
Hosokai, who began her career as a florist before expanding into balloon art and opening her “Daisy Balloon” office 10 years ago, hopes to lift the profile of balloon fashion and attract customers eager for unusual party wear.
She has sold more than 20 wedding dresses since entering the business two years ago and would be pleased if her ephemeral garments helped lift spirits in the wake of Japan’s March 11 disaster by reminding people of their childhood dreams.
“You can wow people at parties or weddings with a balloon dress. They’ll be surprised,” she said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion