Quite often the most original or bizarre ideas do not appear on the fashion runways: in this dubious edition of the FIFA World Cup, currently on in Qatar, the most interesting things were the extraordinary attires of some of the football fans.
Some were so unique that they went viral: last week to celebrate the Brazil-Croatia game, a Brazil fan paid tribute to football legend Pelé wearing a peculiar mirror outfit to their World Cup quarter-final against Croatia.
Made of triangular pieces of coloured mirrors that formed a mosaic-like geometric uniform in a broken glass pattern stitched onto a layer of fabric, the full body costume shone under the lights, giving the impression you weren't seeing a human being, but an animation enhanced by special effects, a digital rendition of a football player out of a video game, a computer simulation or maybe a person with an augmented reality filter on them, as somebody remarked on Twitter.
Brazil lost and Croatia qualified for the semi-finals, but the video of the fan walking around and posing with people for pictures outside the Education City Stadium in Qatar went viral for obvious reasons, some clips on Instagram featured also another fan dressed in a similar attire, but impersonating Cristiano Ronaldo.
Commenting about the Brazil fan attire, a user on Twitter hoped the fan had patented and sold the idea, and well, actually, that's probably the case. The costumes weren't indeed handmade by the fans, but provided by Slovakia-based event agency MaskBusters. They offer a wide range of costumes made with the same technique (representing bees, ants, ballerinas, wild animals and ancient Egyptian deities) to hire (they don't sell them).
Fashion has played with the idea of shiny and reflective mirrors during the S/S 16 season when Jonathan Anderson at Loewe and John Galliano at Maison Margiela sent on their runways designs that integrated broken pieces of mirrors forming decorative motifs or stone shards covered in silver to mimick mirrors underneath sheer dresses.
In both collections, though, the idea was representing shattered existences maybe, while the football costumes mentioned above are based on the allure offered by the geometrical precision of the mosaic, that offers a sort of parametric effect.
The principle behind the costume is the same behind Issey Miyake's Bao Bao bag with triangles appliqued on a soft structure.
This type of structure allows the costume to follow the movement of the body and the bags to create versatile three-dimensional shapes. These designs are also built on the principles of mutability in connection with light: when they are hit by the light, the costumes create uncanny optical illusions, while the new Bao Bao Platinum series is made using a higher-grade premium mirrored material that emits a more intense and radiantly luminous shine.
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