Shirt changes colour on detecting air pollution

If you take a look at these shirts for the first time, you won’t be impressed. It looks like an average shirt you would find in your neighbourhood mall. But if you wear them out in the city long enough you’ll start to see why they carry a hefty price tag. In a matter of seconds the black shirts change into pristine white, revealing an intricate pattern of polka dots, cheetah prints and other labyrinthine design.

The shirts are true to the name of their line. Aerochromics are responding to changes in air quality. The change colour when they detect an unhealthy, or even dangerous, concentration of pollutants in the air.

Futuristic as the T-shirts may sound, the technology used is actually readily available, says creator Nikolas Bentel, a speculative designer based in Queens, New York. “The project came out of a speculative world”, says Bentel, whose designs focus on addressing issues of the future. “The way I do a lot of projects is I start with a future scenario of how our world will end up if we keep ignoring pollution, let’s say, and then how the objects around us will have to change.”

Nowadays, there are several ways to keep track of their city’s level of pollution from websites and apps that provide global air pollution in real time to portable sensors. Yet that information escapes the general public and therefore isn’t on top of their list of priorities. The shirts will be that starting point. “One of the ways to get people to look at information,”

Bentel hopes that the shirts will create a dialogue and create awareness on the dangers of pollution in our daily lives. For those willing to purchase this shirt that costs $500 will start that conversation. Also they are a great way to get the message across. For the rest of us, however, planting a tree might be the better option!