Digital fashion house The Fabricant and designer Toni Maticevski have created the Animator Overcoat, a piece of unisex virtual haute couture that is decorated with claw-like spikes.
Dubbed "digi-couture," the Animator Overcoat is a purely digital garment with protruding spikes and a cascading train that resembles molten metal and takes cues from 1999 science-fiction film The Matrix.
The designers say the garment is intentionally gender-neutral
The garment was available for visitors to virtually try on at Australian Fashion Week, where they were digitally dressed by the team from DressX.
The digital fashion retailer produces virtual clothes that can be worn in photographs.
Visitors to the show were photographed in the Animator Overcoat by a fashion photographer and then received a digital asset of themselves wearing the virtual clothing. "It's an experience in which everybody can be front row," co-founder of The Fabricant Amber Jae Slooten told Dezeen.
"Normally, if you go to a fashion show, you're looking at it but you're not really a part of it. For us, it was important that anybody could be a part of this if they wanted to be."
Claw-like spikes protrude from the overcoat
Dark and spiky in appearance, the Animator Overcoat's design was informed by sea urchins, but was also designed to carry a message about the perceived hostility of digital spaces.
"A sea urchin looks very hostile from the outside but from the inside, it's actually quite ...