Dress lights up when wearer’s phone rings

Let me just go ahead and say that I wouldn’t be caught dead in this dress. What was this British design student thinking?

Last week, an attention-grabbing dress was unveiled: It was a prototype dress that is designed to light up when the phone of the person wearing the dress rings. What the heck?

Georgie Davis [the design student] said the dress is designed to eventually be connected to the wearer’s phone by Bluetooth wireless technology, so she can be alerted to a call even in noisiest of places.

“When you’re in a pub or a bar, you can never, ever hear your phone,” 20-year-old Davis told Reuters on Wednesday.

The right shoulder of the dress is embellished with translucent white scales that move and light up.

Apparently there’s a thin line between style and technology.

This article appears in Jun 23-30, 2009.