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Switzerland

Fashion With A Brain? Behold Ying Gao's Interactive Creations

The Chinese-born fashion designer creates clothes that react to light, sound, even a passing glance. What would Lady Gaga think?

Ying Gao's photo-luminescent dresses
Ying Gao's photo-luminescent dresses
Julie Conti

GENEVA — In the rarefied world of high fashion, she has made her mark designing "interactive" clothes. Yes...a blast, a sound, a flash or even just a look can make her creations suddenly light up or start to move.

When a spectator looks at Ying Gao's two photo-luminescent dresses called "(No) where (now) here," for example, the dresses suddenly contract and move thanks to inflatable sensors and motors.

"I don't know if people are singled out for good reasons. But surely the technological aspect is what intrigues," she sighs.

More than anything, the Chinese-born fashion designer, who divides her time between Geneva and Montreal, is afraid of being misunderstood. That's exactly what happened when she presented one of her creations called "Playtime," a dress that features scattered lights that are activated by camera flashes, which can foil attempts at photographing the woman who might be wearing it. It is a tribute to Jacques Tati's movie "Playtime" in which the filmmaker uses trompe-l'oeil effects and reflections. Thus Yiang Gao wasn't pleased when journalists dubbed her creation "anti-paparazzi" fashion.

"It sounded terrible," she says. "A misunderstood object represents the death of the concept and it kills the desire to experiment."

A Lady Gaga nightmare

Her nightmare would be to see Lady Gaga wearing one of her dresses on a red carpet. Therefore, she refuses, for the moment, to produce a limited edition of her creations. "I prefer to see it in museums for now, so they maintain an experimental character. It is just the beginning for interactive clothes, and I need to wait for the field to mature."

Ying Gao's dream is to create self-thinking interactive clothes, and she has been testing a device for more than a year that can transform dresses by water movements.

On the technical side, the designer has collaborated for more than a decade with Simon Laroche, an artist who works with robotics. They have begun using 3D-printers, which allow them to develop unique and miniaturized pieces and motors. She hopes her clothes can someday make everyone reflect on appearances. They already make us dream.

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Geopolitics

Senegal's Democratic Unrest And The Ghosts Of French Colonialism

The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France's colonial past.

Image of Senegalese ​Protesters celebrating Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Protesters celebrate Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — For a long time, Senegal had the glowing image of one of Africa's rare democracies. The reality was more complicated than that, even in the days of the poet-president Léopold Sedar Senghor, who also had his dark side.

But for years, the country has been moving down what Senegalese intellectual Felwine Sarr describes as the "gentle slope of... the weakening and corrosion of the gains of Senegalese democracy."

This has been demonstrated once again over the last few days, with a wave of violence that has left 16 people dead, 500 arrested, the internet censored, and a tense situation with troubling consequences. The trigger? The sentencing last Thursday of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison, which could exclude him from the 2024 presidential elections.

Young people took to the streets when the verdict was announced, accusing the justice system of having become a political tool. Ousmane Sonko had been accused of rape but was convicted of "corruption of youth," a change that rendered the decision incomprehensible.

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