Urban Camouflage

Last night watching Chelsea Lately (since Jon Stewart is in a two-week book writing vacation), I got introduced to a Japanese designer who designed this:



The crime rate in Japan is pretty low but the recent safety panic compelled designer Aya Tsukioka to design some camouflage street attires to conceal individuals from pursuing robbers and rapists.





Sure it's a fun idea and there are plenty of vending machines in the streets of Japan but the execution is laughable. Instead of running away like any sane people would, you'd have to be constantly wearing this oddly shaped dress as if you're waiting to be assaulted and hoping you'd be able to get away long enough to flip this dress over your head and then hoping you won't tremble with fear. I mean how obvious is a shaking vending machine? You might as well carry a pepper spray.

At the same time, is this meant to be wore at night or during the day? The light of vending machines shine at night and the dress obviously does not. During the day, your shoes sticks out from below plus it's a one-dimensional dress, the 3 dimension look from the last picture above requires two people to pull it off, you can see their shoe). Two people actively wearing the same concept dress while running away from the same criminal instead of calling the cop or running to escape. What are the odds? ...And let's hope there's no wind blowing, shall we?





The child version imitates a holder of fire distinguisher that also populate the street of Japan. I guess it would help to run away from bullies or pursuers (at night?) His legs are out there, so it's still pretty easy to see through it, but I do like the reddish brown leather backpack before the transformation. The kid needs to hold the bag in front of his face, don't they know how heavy the backpack of an Asian student is? It's usually around 20 lbs. He might as well hide behind the real thing of the same height or better yet, there's a big pole right next to him on the right that could hide his whole body.



This little diddy here is called a "Manhole Bag". You're supposed to throw your valuable in the "ho-bag" and throw it on the ground to throw off your pursuer. Hopefully you weren't carrying anything big and it's dark enough to conceal the crease on the bag.

I'm thinking what could be the equivalent for the U.S., there doesn't seemed to be much on the street other than the trash cans, mailboxes or those electrical circuit box that control traffic lights. What kind of contraption would it require for someone to transform into a mailbox? Maybe a shorter/skinnier person can do the transformation but if you're obese, you're on your own.

Maybe I'll get one of these dresses for this Halloween.