By Jasmin Malik Chua / Source: Ecouterre

Lauren Bowker, part designer, part alchemist, has teamed up with Selfridges to create a collection of color-changing accessories that respond to stimuli such as heat, light, touch, even pollution. Bowker, like the name of her label, The Unseen, indicates, has a taste for the ineffable. A scarf, infused with special thermochromic inks, for instance, manifests different patterns according to the temperature. A leather backpack, susceptible to the slightest pressure, blooms in prismatic hues that fade over time. One reptile-embossed cuff appears black when dormant but flushes iridescent if handled.

But Bowker is more than the sum of her gimmicks. A trained chemist, she created the world’s first pollution-absorbing dye early in her career. Bowker is currently working on an ink that tracks electrical activity in the brain and uses changing colors to reflect emotions.

Beyond spectacle, her products offer a way to qualify, delineate, and otherwise parse the invisible forces that surround us.

n fact, fashion may be little more than a delivery system for innovations with potential applications in engineering or medicine.

Bowker previously worked with the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, where she helped create bandages that detected changes around the site of application. (The project was later shelved due to lack of funding.)

“The purpose of The Unseen wasn’t to be in all the press and everywhere,” Bowker told CNN in June. “It was a strategic plan so we can create products that help people in their daily lives.”

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