The rapid development of digital technology makes it possible for fashion to combine new materials and technologies that maximize visual effects. In particular, the development of various fashionable technologies, which advocate a strong experimental nature of forward-looking images, have appeared in various ways by varying costumes with multi-functional concepts which have never seen so far, or interactive fashions. This study identifies formative features and the implicative meaning of inflatable fashion by escaping from traditional methods and function of costumes to analyze various types of inflatable wear that have function and form vary depending on the situation.

Since the 1960s, new PVC and polyurethane materials and the development of high-frequency sewing technique enabled the mass production of inflatable products in rides and household goods that produced inflatable costumes to trigger a new visual interest in fashion. Inflatable wear, launched from a space look, has combined with digital technologies since 2000. Inflatable wear, one of various concepts of shifting wear, can transform function and form using a sensor in given circumstances that enable a focus on transformation. Therefore, it has been changed using multi-functionalities that can cope with a varying environment.

The first type of inflatable wear, which represents an expansive simple costume image, is expressed as a swollen and expanded type such as part of skirt or jacket or dress. The representative work is ‘Kinship Journeys’ (2003-4 A/W Collection) published by Hussein Chalayan, which expresses the extension of simple forms and the extension of concepts. The second type of inflatable wear is a form conversion by remote control where the form was expanded by air insertion. However, this type has been produced by performance costumes that focus on immediate variability through digital technology. Diana Eng’s ‘Inflatable Dress’ is a work that shows a visual form conversion that highlights soft silk chiffon materials to plastic-looking materials with improvements in a flat silhouette to an extended three-dimensional structure. The third type of inflatable wear is the usage conversion type of multifunction concept. It is expressed by a function shifting design that uses a multipurpose concept through a conversion of usage and form. A sleeping bag, the representative work developed by C.P Company, can be used for multiple purposes such as a parka that wraps the full body or also acts as an up-and-down separable jumper; a sleeping bag form at bedtime and a bag form when moving.

An analysis of inflatable wear types showed the following results. First, inflatable wear is an enlarged concept of costume different from traditional conventional costume stereotypes that creates an expanded communication and exchange space to express the garment of wrapping human bodies in liberal and various ways. Second, fashion combined with technology acts as a multifunction that actively introduces mobility and variability in costumes and expands the meaning and concept of fashion. Third, inflatable wear fashion is expressed as a performance arena moving forward from an experimental fashion show form that shows a distinctive difference before and after air insertion.
Fashion design is identified as a method to stimulate human emotion and exchange mutual feelings and as a multi-purpose device that allows the protection and concealment; consequently, it is the best method to create visual stories that express the socio-cultural trends and conditions.

• Jung Sun Huh(Kyungpook National University)