Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law & Technology

Barcode Brilliance: Hear the Sound of Ei Wada's Barcodist's Beats

Barcodes. We bump into one of them every day when we go to any kind of shop and buy any sort of products, from ordinary ones, like toiletries or snacks, to something special or very expensive and exclusive, like a luxury bag.

We usually don't pay attention to them as we see the shop assistant reading the barcode with the scanner and hear the familiar beep back that signals the system has registered the product.

But what if barcodes were more than just a series of lines used to store text information about a product and could produce a wide range of sounds rather than just a beep?

Could they be used to produce an entertaining symphony rather than just a boring and annoying beep? The answer, though improbable, is a definite yes, they could be used in more entertaining ways, and Tokyo-based Japanese sound artist Ei Wada has got the final proof.

Better known for his trademark electronic sounds generated by analog recorders with reel-to-reel magnetic tapes, for turning old electronic appliances into improbable musical instruments and producing mesmerising sounds with them, and for his performances with the Open Reel Ensemble that have also provided the soundtrack for live fashion shows such as Issey Miyake's, a few years ago Ei Wada started experimenting with the possibility of playing music using hacked barcode scanners with his group Electronicos Fantasticos!

The sound artist found a way to modify the devices so that they could read a series of assorted line patterns and produce a variety of beats and electronic effects and noises, once connected to an audio output.

The results could be simply disastrous, but Ei Wada has got an amazing sense of rhythm and even an old electrical fan can turn into a melodious instrument in his hands, and his barcode scanners can therefore produce magical sounds.     

He also came up with a term to describe a person who makes sounds by connecting the scanned-signal of a barcode scanner to a powered speaker directly, rather than to a cash register - a barcodist.

You could also be a regular cashier during the morning and turn into a skilled barcodist at night, as Wada suggests on his site.

A while back he also came up with a "Barcodress", a design covered in black and white stripes slightly reminiscent of the dazzle camouflage patterns and created with a dancer in mind.

As the dancer moves, barcodists play the gown, generating a casual live soundtrack that guides the choreography of the performer. In this way, new relationships between music and dance expressions could be explored. 

But how does the magic work? Ei Wada controls sounds with his scanners by varying certain parameters such as the pitch by moving closer or farther away, the speed and position of the scanner can also produce further variables.

The black and white striped images hide sounds in their patterns, just like the holes in the perforated cardboards of the Jacquard loom corresponded to the design to be reproduced (think also about early computer punch cards...), and the scanners control the sounds. The striped pattern turns into sounds by sending the electric signals generated by the reflection of laser to a speaker.

The latest development of this project is the "Barcode Boarding", which the artist calls a sort of "electromagnetic style of skateboarding": Ei Wada attached a barcode scanner to a skateboard reading barcode signals printed on the ground. In a video Wada is shown on board of a skateboard, producing scratching sounds, and with a Barcode Scanner Guitar, an instrument that, you guessed it, has barcodes rather than strings.

In May, Wada did a "Barcode Boarding" event with the Kitakyushu Skateboard Association in which the skateboards were employed to create intriguing sounds and choreographies.

We can only hope that "Barcode Boarding" will become an Olympic discipline as soon as possible as "scratchboarding on barcodes" sounds and looks extremely fun, and, who knows, maybe at some point we will see an entire ballet based on Ei Wada's "Barcodress" or a fashion collection by an avant-garde fashion designer or brand (à la Anrealage?) featuring clothes with prints of barcodes that can be played. In the meantime, Ei Wada and the Electronicos Fantasticos! will be heading in September to the Norther Alps Art Festival in Omachi, Nagano, Japan, for the joy of all the fans of Ei Wada's inventively fascinating beats.

Geometrically Conceptual Videogame Inspiration: Anrealage X Nintendo's Super Mario

Quite a few fashion houses and brands jumped on the videogame bandwagon in the last few years, realising that they can be a great way to reach out to younger consumers while creating unique environments where collections can be presented and campaigns launched.   

Anrealage also joined the trend: after creating an exclusive trench coat for Nintendo's "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" in collaboration with Vogue Japan last year, the Japanese brand led by Kunihiko Morinaga announced at the end of July a limited edition capsule featuring Nintendo's Super Mario inspired products, including T-shirts and a mobile phone cover.

The main inspiration point for this capsule wasn't Super Mario, though, but geometry (Morinaga has got a soft spot for this discipline) and in particular the Question Mark cube.

This is undoubtedly one of the most recognisable videogame designs: a staple of the Super Mario universe, the Question Mark cube is one of the most common block that you can spot in the Super Mario games. Such cubes can usually be seen floating in midair and, when hit, they reveal coins, Super Mushrooms or Fire Flowers.

Yet, rather than coming up with some plain prints as other designers may have done in his place, Morinaga put the trademark Anrealage's geometricaly conceptual spin on his designs for Nintendo.

So while the phone covers incorporate real dried flowers (View this photo), a material Morinaga has been using often in Anrealage's Anever line of jewellery recently, the long sleeve T-shirt is based on Anrealage's classic cube T-shirt from the S/S 09 collection (three years ago, Anrealage also released a limited collection for Amazon with some pieces based on this collection). Thanks to the designer's conceptual pattern for this item, the T-shirt can be retransformed into the iconic Super Mario Question Mark block.

Moving from his experiments with lights and shadows and retroreflective technlogy Morinaga also created a T-shirt printed with various items that appear from the block.

So, if you take a flash shot with your smartphone, the Super Star, Super Mushroom, Fire Flower, or coin will appear as if they were emerging from the yellow Question Mark cube printed on this otherwise minimalist looking shirt.

The items will be available from Anrealage's Shibuya Parco store or from the brand's online store from September 2021 and they are the final proof that videogames do not inspire just basic garments with prints of assorted heroes and heroines dedicated to videogame fans, but these designs can be fun and conceptual as well.

Now, any chance of having an Anrealage collection and presentation inspired by Nintendo's "The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles" maybe?

Straw Shoes, Then & Now

It is always exciting to spot connections and draw comparisons between textiles and paintings or traditional designs and more modern pieces. A few weeks ago we looked at a patchwork Korean bojagi that called to mind Piet Mondrian's compositions, let's continue the Korean crafts trend and look at these Korean straw-woven sandals.

The most used type of straw shoes around the first century in Korea were called jipsin and were made with rice straw and mainly favoured by ordinary people. More complex designs like the mituri that had a more pronounced canoe-like shape and were made by tightly weaving fine hemp fibers, were instead used by women and scholars.

It was also possible to find straw shoes that incorporated other materials, such as sedge, mulberry, hanji (traditional Korean handmade paper made from the inner bark of Broussonetia papyrifera, colloquially known as paper mulberry) and leather.

The sandals featured in the first three images in this post - currently available on the Tatami Antiques site, an independent online marketplace for Japanese antiquities that often offers intriguing textile pieces and ideas for fashion designers (the item is sold by kikue, a seller specialised in Korean antiquities) - refer to the jipsin model and feature four core ropes woven to the sole. The heel strap in these shoes was usually strengthened by weaving paper mulberry bark and the shoe strap was tied with a knot in the middle so the shoe would not easily come off. 

Centuries have passed, but straw is still used in shoes, especially summer sandals. While we mainly see raffia footwear as this material is more flexible and pliant, yet still very resistant, it is not unusual to see straw being used for natural looking shoes, like the sandals by Bottega Veneta featured in the last picture in this post.

Obviously the configuration of these luxury shoes is different and the Bottega Veneta sandals integrate woven straw and raffia that reproduce the trademark intrecciato design of the brand, but the idea of using a natural material for a key accessory is the same. Can you think about another traditional design from the past incorporating a natural material that is still being used nowadays?

Quick Summer Craft Project: Chlamys Varia Earrings

August is the height of the summer season and there’s nothing better than to fashion something for yourself out of what you may find on your holidays.

If you’re lucky enough and live near the beach or if you're heading to a seaside resort (obviously always check out the rules regarding Covid-19 as travellers may be asked to show their Green/Health Pass to have access to public places in Europe), look for shells on the beach.

Remember to check the local regulations as on some beaches you may not be allowed to collect them, but if you’re allowed to pick shells, well, enjoy finding some great ones to create your own accessories, after all, shells are always in fashion.

I'm mesmerised by the colours and shape of shells and I have a soft spot for shell jewellery, especially if made with large shells and I particularly love scallops, but a few days ago my brother found two small chlamys varia shells with some wonderful mahogany, maroon and burnt orange nuances and I bumped into a cream and pale beige medium-sized cardium.

I turned the former into a pair of earrings, and the latter into a mono earring as I couldn’t find another cardium of the same size and in good conditions. Have fun with your summer craft project whatever it may be!

Friday Inspiration: The Shape of Water Vs The Shapes That Water Can Create

In yesterday's post we remembered some fun vintage bathing caps, so let's jump in the water today for a brief exploration of the shape of water or of the shapes that water can create.

Nature offers us the most inspiring patterns, designs and structures, many of them forming unexpected geometries. Water to our eyes is a fluid, yet it does have a shape: you may think about the inifinitely different snowflakes, all based on the hexagon, but the reason why we can talk about water and geometry is the structure of its molecule. 

Liquid water consists of an interconnected network with water molecules acting as the network's components, connected to one another via hydrogen bonds. The water molecule has a distorted tetrahedral geometry.

Yet we're not here to talk about the geometries of molecules, but at the shapes that water can create: on Monday we looked at Chladni figures and, if you put water under frequencies of sounds and vibrations, you would realise that water creates shapes reminiscent of sacred geometrical patterns.

A while back Linden Gledhill, a Philadelphia-based pharmaceutical biochemist, began experimenting with water and photography (all his experiments suspended between art and science can be admired on his Flickr page; the third and fourth picture in this post are by Gledhill) and started taking pictures of water on a cymascope, a dish of water sitting on a speaker under a microscope.

The vibrations formed patterns on the waves and he focused on capturing the frequencies with a ultra-high-frame-rate camera. The results of his experiments are visually striking and mesmerising with a hallucinatory twist about them and they are also fashionable, as they were reprinted on the garments from Threeasfour's Pre-Fall 2018 collection.

If you think these experiments about the shapes that water can create are too difficult for you, well, create your own shapes with water, like I did underwater a few days ago for another personal project I've been working on. You may not get perfect results, but the fun is guaranteed. 

Fun Designs from the Past: Vintage Double-Faced Swimming Caps

In yesterday’s post we looked at a debate over swimming caps at the Olympic Games, so let’s move from this accessory to rediscover the allure of bathing caps with some vintage designs from the late '50s by Betty Darling.

The caps were created by Betty Geib, a Long Island housewife, who originally designed them to amuse her children.

The caps featured indeed funny masklike faces and motifs including a sea serpent, a black cat, and a sunflower, decorating the back of the head and creating a fun effect when you saw a wearer donning one.

Life magazine (20th April 1959 issue) stated indeed about the caps "it may be difficult to tell whether the girls on the beach this summer are coming or going".

The first ones she made for a church bazaar were rather successful, so Geib started producing them under the name Betty Darling.

Probably better for leisure activities around the swimming pool or the beach rather than for vigorously swimming in the sea, the caps still look fun after all these years and could be considered as the antecedents of contemporary kids' fun swimming caps shaped like animals such as cats, bears, fish or sharks.

Between Bans & Double Standards: Racist Incidents in Sports

In yesterday’s post we looked at sports uniforms and the sexualisation of women in sports. Yet, at times, there have been episodes that involved sports apparel, women and racism.

One episode that shed light on inclusivity in sports happened at the beginning of July when the International Swimming Federation (FINA) rejected the use of swimming caps by Soul Cap.

The Black-owned, UK-based company, co-founded by Toks Ahmed and Michael Chapman, specialises in silicone extra-large swimming caps for natural black hair. The caps are ideal for people with afros, weaves, extensions, dreadlocks, thick and curly hair.

The brand also partnered with 24-year-old athlete Alice Dearing, the first Black woman to represent Team GB at the Olympics and co-founder of the Black Swimming Association.

While in yesterday's post we mentioned the athletes from the Norway team who were told that their shorts didn't conform to the rules and were eventually fined for "improper clothing", FINA stated in this case that the caps do not fit "the natural form of the head" (you may have expected a more technical comment, like the caps facilitating swimming, something not even applicable in this case as the caps are larger and may actually put swimmers at a disadvantage).

FINA then added to this already puzzling comment that to their "best knowledge the athletes competing at the international events never used, neither require… caps of such size and configuration". The words to justify their excuse for not allowing the caps opened the proverbial Pandora's box as it became clear that the athletes seen so far by FINA competing at international events were mainly white, that’s why they never needed swimming caps specially designed for afro hair.

The case reshifted the attention of people on social media about the fact that members of the BAME community often decide not to take up swimming as there is a lack of products designed for them. Welcoming such a product at the level of official competitions could instead encourage members of the black and minority ethnic community of all ages to take up swimming which is not just a great sport, but it is first and foremost a lifesaving skill.

Eventually Brent Nowicki, executive director of the International Swimming Federation, apologised, but the ban wasn't lifted. The decision is being reviewed, in the meantime, Nowicki invited Soul Cap to submit again their application in September. Yet the main point of all this debate is not the ban on this product, but the inclusivity and representation behind the product.

But this is not the only time we have seen racism appearing in sports in connection maybe with a garment or accessory: in 2018 the French Open banned Serena Williams' catsuit that made her look like a superhero. Wearing it, she stated, made her feel like "a warrior princess… from Wakanda, maybe," referring to the movie "Black Panther". The catsuit had actually got a medical purpose as Williams had suffered from blood clots in her lungs after giving birth to her daughter and the suit helped the blood circulation going.

Most tennis tournaments have specific dress codes that quite often sound ridiculously dated: Wimbledon even requires players to dress almost entirely in white. The rule states: "White does not include off-white or cream; there should be no solid mass or panel of colouring; a single trim of colour around the neckline and around the cuff of the sleeve is acceptable but must be no wider than 1cm; shoes must be almost entirely white, including the soles; and any undergarments that either are or can be visible during play (including due to perspiration) must also be completely white except for a single trim of colour no wider than 1cm." In Williams' catsuit case, though, you felt that the French Open was almost bothered by the fact that the athlete looked like a fierce and sensual Amazon in her dynamic bodysuit.

But if these stories focus more on sports apparel and racism, there have been incidents that point at double standards. As you may remember, at the 2018 US Open Women's Singles tennis final, Serena Williams had an argument with chair umpire Carlos Ramos.

The umpire penalised Williams for receiving instructions from her coach, a charge of cheating, and complained about that. In the second set, Williams smahed her racket and got a point penalty. Frustrated, Williams accused Ramos of stealing a point from her and the umpire retaliated by deducting a game from the American. Williams was also fined $17,000 over the incident that sparked a debate and a racist cartoon in an Australian newspaper. At the time Williams claimed the umpire's decision were sexist, while her fans wondered if a man in her position (how many times have we seen a male tennis player smashing a racket on the court?) would have received the same penalties.

The same double standard was applied to a more recent incident: African American sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson, an athelete with an explosive power and a totally fierce look who won the 100m final at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 10.86, qualifying for the Tokyo Games, wasn't able to go to the Olympics as she was suspended after testing positive for cannabis during a dope test.

Marijuana is legal in some states in America, including Oregon, where Richardson used it. Richardson accepted responsibility and the story ended there, dividing public opinion and breaking the heart of her fans, while Congresswoman Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez stated on social media that the International Olympic Committee's ban was "an instrument of racist and colonial policy."

But while she was suspended, there was no ban on Alen Hadzic, an alternate on the US fencing team accused of sexual predation and sexual assault by six female fencers. The alleged crime is being investigated, but Hadzic was able to go to Tokyo, even though he was flown apart from his teammates, excluded from the opening ceremony's parade and also put in a different accomodation to keep him separate from the other athletes. 

Mind you, there have also been cases in which there was no double standard applied, but racism still triumphed. In 2019, drawing attention to racial injustice, US hammer thrower Gwen Berry raised a fist on the podium when she won gold at the Pan-Am Games towards the end of the national anthem.

Berry violated the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) prohibition on athletes' demonstrations and the Olympic body put her on probation for a year. A white male athlete, fencer Race Imboden, who took a knee on the podium in the same games, incurred in the same fate.

Things may be slowly changing, though, as the USOPC stopped sanctioning athletes for such demonstrations and athletes are now allowed to raise a fist or kneel at the Olympic trials without being punished; besides, they can also wear clothes displaying messages such as "Black Lives Matter".

The road to equality in sports is long, but, luckily, it is possible to meet along it some wonderfully fierce people, especially women, who are fighting racial discrimination and its underlying inequalities. A last honourable mention to complete this post goes to Olympic figure skater Surya Bonaly. Her signature backflips remained illegal and dangerous for the International Skating Union Bonaly, but she entered history for being the only Olympic figure skater to land a backflip on only one blade (in the history of ice skating, only men completed the backflip but all of them landed on both feet). In 1998, fearless Bonaly showed the judges who often claimed her style didn't meet the figure skating criteria, what she could do, making a statement as a fearless athlete and as one of a very few Black women in ice skating in her times. 

Of Leotards, Bodysuits & Bikini Bottoms: When Sports Shape & Sexualize Women's Bodies

Stars have always been trendy: if you started doing a research about stars appearing in collections as prints, patterns, embellishments and decorative motifs on clothes and accessories you would end up writing a lengthy tome.

Stars have always been in fashion as they represent a joyful motif, a passion for the universe, the cosmo and astronomy, and they can be used to interpret a moment of heightened glamour, if you think about the star studded ensembles by Adrian donned by Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr and Lana Turner as Susan Gallagher, Sandra Kolter and Sheila Reganas, three aspiring showgirls in Ziegfeld Girls (1941), directed by Robert Z. Leonard.

Stars reappeared also on the leotards of the USA women's gymnastics team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games (currently on). 

GK Elite, the official apparel sponsor for the U.S. gymnastics teams since 2000, created different leotards for the team's Simone Biles (who exited women's team final today over mental health concern), Jordan Chiles, Sunisa Lee, Grace McCallum, Jade Carey and MyKayla Skinner.

Two of the leotards featured stars motifs, the lavender one for the Women's Podium Training featured more subtle motifs of stars, and the Swarovski-embellished leoard in classic US patriotic colours - red, white, and blue - for the Women's Qualifications.

A sleeveless version of the leotard is available on the site of the brand: the "Scattered Stars" leotard has got a sustainable twist about it since it is made entirely out of recycled fabric.

Yet this year the focus is not on stars embellishing leotards at the Olympic Games, but on women's uniforms and sexism in sports.

Germany's Women's Gymnastics Team (Sarah Voss, Pauline Schaefer, Elisabeth Seitz and Kim Bui) stood proud at the Olympic Games in their stylish angle-length white, scarlet red and blue bodysuits. The team already opted for the full-body style that makes them look like superheroines for the European Gymnastics Championship in April. 

Their protest and decision to wear full-length 3/4 sleeve unitards was a way to highlight sexism in sports and sexualization in gymnastics in particular.

The psychological and physical abuse some artistic and rhythmic gymnasts from different countries went through is well-known, but quite often athletes remained silent about them.

In more recent years things started to change: in 2018, the US gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, convicted of abusing at least 265 gymnasts over several decades, was sentenced to 175 years in prison (this is actually the first edition of the Olympic Games edition since Nassar was condemned...). This year seventeen gymnasts started a legal case against British Gymnastics over alleged physical and psychological abuse. 

Full-length bodysuits in this sport are not against official rules, but they aren't seen that often: by wearing them the Germany team highlighted the importance of feeling comfortable in sports and creating an equal and safe environment without feeling objectified.

And while they were praised for setting an example, other women have been penalised for similar uniform-related reasons: Norway's Women's Beach Handball Team opted to wear shorts instead of the required bikini bottoms during a game at the European Beach Handball Championships and they alerted the federation they were going to do so.

Yet, on 20th July the European Handball Federation fined each player 150 euros (the total fine amounted to €1,500) for "improper clothing". According to uniform regulations in the International Handball Federation regulations of the game, women must wear close fit bikini bottoms with a side width of 3.9 inches maximum and a sports bra when playing official games. Men can instead wear shorts that are "not too baggy" and 10 centimeters above the kneecap ⁠and a tank top.  

The Norwegian Handball Federation stated that it was prepared to cover the fines, but American pop singer Pink offered to pay what she called the "sexist" fine (impossible to disagree with her). In the meantime, the team will continue their fight through the Olympics and they are probably grateful they were fined as this decision by the International Handball Federation attracted the attention towards this case and helped the team spreading the message about this shockingly nonsensical rule, making us all realise the time has come to change it. 

Yet, while they were fined for wearing slightly longer shorts rather than bikini bottoms, British Paralympian Olivia Breen, who will represent national team in the Tokyo Paralympic Games, experienced the opposite. Last week she was told indeed that her Adidas running briefs were "too short and inappropriate" by a sporting official at the English Championships. The same official also invited her to consider buying a pair of shorts. Breen hopes that she can continue wearing the briefs - that are actually less revealing than the bikini bottoms used in beach handball - when competing at the Tokyo Paralympics starting on August 24.

These episodes prompt you to ask yourself a lot of questions: would male athletes for example be subjected to such careful and cruel scrutiny? Would they be told their shorts are too short or too long? Probably not. Sexualizing female athletes' bodies by imposing on them certain rules on sport uniforms contributes to kill body confidence, body positivity and self-esteem in our sports icons, but also in ordinary women (what if a young girl wants to start playing a sport such as beach handball, but she doesn't feel confident enough in bikini bottoms? should she just give up without even trying?) and makes you sadly realise that in our century and times women are still judged by their bodies, their shapes and attributes rather than their skills, talents, strength and intelligence.

Monday Inspiration: The Science of Acoustics & Chladni Figures

In yesterday’s post we mentioned the waves of the sea crashing, but, for today, let's move onto a completely different type of waves - the wave vibrations as those studied by German physicist, musician and musical instrument maker Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni (1756 - 1827).

Unanimously considered as the father of acoustics, he is known for his researches on vibrating plates, but also his studies about meteorites.

Chladni was interested in science, but his father was a lawyer and wanted his son to continue his career. Chladni therefore obtained a law degree from the University of Leipzig in 1782, but, after his father died, he resumed his studies in physics.

In the late 1700s he started his first experiments with acoustics and came up with a technique to show the different modes of vibration on a rigid surface to demonstrate and visualise the patterns of standing wave vibrations.

Chladni sprinkled fine sand on a metal plate and, drawing a violin bow along the edges, he produced vibrations. The sand reacted, settling at nodal points (also known as "nodes"), that is areas of zero movement, producing in this way intricately complex patterns.

Different modes of vibration produce different and unique patterns: for example bowing harder and faster on the same place produces a much higher tone and creates a more detailed pattern.

In this case the sand produces more intricate motifs with more nodes and smaller open spaces.  

The complexity depends therefore on the frequency of the vibration, while the shape of the patterns is dictated by the shape of the plate.

This phenomenon was mentioned by Leonardo da Vinci in his notebooks and discussed by Galileo Galilei in his work "Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo" (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 1632).

Robert Hooke did a few experiments in the late 1600s running a violin bow along the edge of a plate covered with flour, but Chladni’s main inspiration for his studies were the electrical figures of Lichtenberg, who made the experiment of scattering an electrified powder over an electrified resin cake; the arrangement of the powder revealing the electric condition of the surface.

Chladni published his studies in 1787 in "Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges" (Discoveries in the Theory of Sound) that comprised 11 plates and a total of 166 figures. 

The patterns resulting from these experiments are called "Chladni figures" and they represent the first step towards visualizing sound.

Chladni often held lectures and became a travelling scientist: people were attracted by his experiments as the figures that formed on the plates looked visually pleasing and aesthetically sophisticated.  

Nowadays these figures can be produced by a virtual imaging program rather than an actual vibrating plate and there's even an app that can help you generating such figures, making the geometry of piano sounds and music visible.

Chladni figures remain immensely inspiring: as you may remember from a previous post, Iris van Herpen explored cymatics (a word meaning "matters pertaining to waves") in her A/W 2016 collection moving from the work of Hans Jenny that is in turn based on Ernst Chladni's 1787 studies.

Chladni's figures could be take further to create jewels, graphic motifs and prints for both clothes and accessories, and the best thing would be to try and come up with your own patterns playing around with a bow, a plate, some sand or salt. Musicians have been doing such experiments for quite a few years now, so it's your turn now to take the discourse further in fashion as well.   

Summer Geometries & Crashing Waves

Most of us do not certainly think about geometry while relaxing at the beach, but a basic bikini is a composition of triangles (bra) and inverted isosceles trapezoids (bottoms). But it is not rare to spot other types of summer geometries in vintage bathing suits like this one from the Met Museum archive.

Designed by Emilio Pucci in 1969 ca. for Saks Fifth Avenue, it is not your average one-piece bathing suit as it is made with two kite-shaped panels on the front. A kite, as some of you may remember from your school days, is a quadrilater in which each pair of consecutive sides are congruent, but opposite sides are not congruent.

If you don't like geometry even when they relate to bathing suits and you'd just wish you were lying on a beach lulled by the waves (whch can be studied also from the point of view of different disciplines, including physics and mathematics...), here's the sound of the waves crashing that I recorded a few days ago as part of another project. Have a lovely Sunday! 

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