This Robotic Dress Fights for Your Personal Space

Ladies: Ever have a dude approach on the subway looking like he wants to climb you like a tree? Perhaps you'll be interested in this futuristic dress, then, that automatically wards away creepsters by expanding like a big balloon.

The "Personal Space Dress" is an experimental garment created by Kathleen McDermott, a Hong Kong-based designer who's making a line of "playful wearable electronics which investigate the ways women experience public space." The way it works is that two sensors mounted on the dress detect when a foreign presence draws near. They then activate a plastic armature that slowly pushes out the dress, like opening an umbrella upside down, until anyone standing too close is pushed to a safe distance. When the sensors detect the coast is clear, the dress deflates back to normal size.