Hasta La Ideas

Fashion designer Maiko Takeda has added glow-in-the-dark designs to her range of spiky masks and body adornments for an exhibition of her work in Paris (+ movie).

Maiko Takeda has extended her Atmospheric Reentry millinery and jewellery collection to include a neckpiece that glows under black light.

The latest design, which wraps around the head and over the shoulders, is presented in a movie by digital art publication POSTmatter.

“When I met Remi Paringaux and his team from POSTmatter last summer to discuss ideas on our collaboration film project, I remembered images of glowing lights in space, such as aerial photographs of northern lights, burning comets and so on in my references,” Takeda told Dezeen.

“I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity to return to this inspiration and see what I can do with it.”

Takeda applied fluorescent pigments to the translucent plastic spikes one by one, combining sprayed gradients of colour with more intense flecks of paint.

The film flicks between light and dark to show the transformation of the piece under UV light. It also shows the delicate translucent bristles ripple in a breeze.

“The way the spikes waved was also beautiful,” Takeda said. “It almost looked like fluorescent jellyfish in water.”

After the film was made, she decided to create another smaller piece that would illuminate in the dark to accompany the first glowing design.

“I used light-emitting pigments instead, so during the day you can only see translucent spikes but when dark it emits lights and glows by itself,” she explained.

Takeda first designed her Atmospheric Reentry collection while studying at London’s Royal College of Art and presented pieces at the institution’s annual fashion show last year.

Icelandic singer Björk has also performed wearing one of Takeda’s headdresses, after seeing the designs on Dezeen.

She now hopes to create pieces that are more wearable day-to-day. “My interest now is to expand the collection including a series of more wearable fashion items,” said Takeda.

“This is not to say I want to make something compromised, but it would be exciting to challenge how far the idea can be developed and cross over the fields of couture and product design.”

The exhibition of her work at the Joyce Gallery in Paris continues until 22 March. Photography is by Ayako Kichikawa.

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glow in the dark appeared first on Dezeen.