Eye Candy (3)
By:
July 15, 2011
Fashionistas! End sartorial subtlety with — flourescent silkworms!
[The Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Singapore]
Get day-glo colors not by dyeing the fabric, or even the threads, but going straight to the source and dying the worms themselves. The technique is billed as having fewer byproducts, and being more environmentally sensitive. Sensitive? Maybe. Fabulous? Yes!
[Alba photographed by Chrystelle Fontaine]
Of course nothing’s ever new as the seasons come around again, and glo-worms are reminiscent of nothing so much as Eduardo Kac’s flourescent rabbit. Although he went a step further than dipping the bunny: he altered its genetic structure to make it glow in the dark. Kac disengenuously claimed the genetic incursion was “…about his daughter’s relationship with her pet,” but we know better than that. It was about his daughter’s relationship with her glowsticks.
Or perhaps his daughter’s relationship with her future tattoos…
Surfaces, surfaces. But in couture, we know the craft goes well beyond the coating. In these must-have accessories, new this season, he construction elements of each specimen are highlighted in Schiaparelli pink, and The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As purple. A girl can’t stop at just one…!
[Kurosoi, Sebastes schlegelii, part of New World Transparent Specimens by Toumei Hyouhon]
As ever, fashion is simply drawing from nature. Fabulous nature, sweetie. How about those bioluminescent fish? Or the fact that some birds see in ultraviolet? And let’s not forget the homewares market — some bees make nests of petals. But not just any petals. Beige again for the drawing room, darling? Branching out into greige, perhaps? Yawn…how unutterably …safe. Turn those hues up to 11!
[Sea creature photographed by Joshua Lambus]
[Female Osmia Avosetta bees arrange flower petals like “shingles” to create nests that swaddle their larvae in winter, photo via Emily Fischer & Haptic Lab]
That wasp is in a ball because it was chillaxing at extra-cold temps for a better photograph. We all suffer for fashion, sweetie-darlings. Of course we do. Because it’s worth it.
[Photomicrograph of ruby-tailed wasp by Spike Walker, Wellcome Images]
This season, colorize your world. Just say yes, yes, yes!
[Not quite extinct yet: Bornean Rainbow Toad by Indraneil Das /CI]