#HTE

Taking Condoms Out of the Bedroom and Onto the Athletic Track

If you tuned in to the Olympics, you might have learned about cupping, blood doping, or any of the numerous techniques employed to give athletes that much sought after edge on the competition. But what if I told you that the next big thing to help athletes increase speed, agility and aerodynamics is…condoms?

Sure enough, SKYN Condoms recently debuted their very own SKYNFEEL APPAREL—what they believe to be the latest advancement in athletic performance wear. SKYNFEEL APPAREL is a one-of-its-kind jumpsuit made out of the same material used by the condom manufacturers, but reengineered by Netherlands-based designer Pauline van Dongen to be worn as a sleek, slim-fitting suit.

Van Dongen was approached by creative agency Sid Lee to collaborate on a special campaign they had in mind for SKYN in January 2016. After bonding over their mutual fascination for material innovation and development, van Dongen found that she had a lot in common with the SKYN Condoms team. “Then, of course, supporting the use of condoms is a good thing, which I’m proud of doing,” van Dongen says.

“Within my studio we have a strong focus on research and material exploration,” van Dongen says. “A large part of our work centers around the performance and the behavior of materials, and the way they act on and in tune with the human body.” It was that specification that put the studio on the map of Sid Lee, who were looking for a designer that could translate the trademark material into something wearable.

The material used to make SKYN condoms is a soft and very stretchable rubber known as polyisoprene. Though polyisoprene is chemically the same type of rubber as latex, the synthetic material has better tensile strength than natural rubber latex and does not contain any of the proteins that cause latex allergies.

“The SKYNFEEL material—polyisoprene—doesn’t really relate to existing textiles which are typically made by weaving or knitting,” van Dongen says. “You can think of it as a non-woven material. The fact that it comes in a liquid form instead of a yarn creates other kinds of opportunities. One of the ideas we had, for instance, was related to the fact that you could spray or apply the material to a mold of a specific body to make an ultra-personalized design.”

“We were given a lot of freedom to come up with various concepts and ideas,” van Dongen says. “We started thinking about the material and its properties to determine how a specific athlete might benefit from it.” Van Dongen and her team decided to focus on the long jump, a sport with little to no innovation in the apparel department and an official world record that has remained unbroken since 1991. “We saw an opportunity here,” she says.

Van Dongen aimed to find a balance between a design that would trigger something new and unexpected, but not come off as being too futuristic or surreal. “Besides the concept of the design and the way it should look, we also paid attention to the way it would fit within the reality and exercise of the actual sport itself,” she says.

“The video takes you along some of the steps in the process,” van Dongen says. “We create thin sheets from the liquid polyisoprene by pouring it onto a glass plate. While still wet, we overlay a laser cut geometric pattern onto it.” Once dry, the geometry is cut open and the resulting edges are reinforced. These dragonfly wing-inspired flaps, located on the edge of the body, are an important element of the aerodynamic design, and create an upward lift that helps long jumpers stay in the air just a little bit longer. The polyisoprene material ensures that these flaps remain airtight, opening up only as the arms stretch forward during the jump of the athlete.

For van Dongen and her team, much of the design process involves testing on the actual body—a process that became especially critical for this project. “Static dress forms are not enough in that sense, we always want an actual person to put it on and explore how the material feels and behaves,” she says.

Starting with some quick and rough cut-outs from paper and then plasticized fabric, they tested their ideas for a laser-cut suit with flaps that would open when the arms thrust forward. “From there on we started refining,” van Dongen says. “We studied various cutting techniques and geometric patterns and searched for the right method to create smooth polyisoprene sheets in a uniform color. Throughout this process we fitted our samples on Joren, the athlete you see performing in the suit in the video.”

The final suit acts like a second skin, minimizing friction and streamlining the body. “The design is completely optimized and fitted Joren in a seamless and comfortable way,” van Dongen says. “Through this process we were able to create a design that has a contemporary look and a progressive feel to it, without alienating it from current sports practices. I hope when people look at it, they do consider something like this having the potential to become reality.”

And while my expectations are low for seeing the next long jump Olympiads decked out in condoms, I do appreciate the material exploration and experimentation—pushing the limits of the objects we interact with every day to create something new. “I think approaching materials in this way will continue to open our eyes towards new ways to produce fashion,” van Dongen says. “We can enhance the expression and the experience of our clothes (the bodily sensations they offer us) by merging material and non-material/digital qualities to create responsive behavior.”