High-Tech Outerwear Designed to Fight Air Pollution

The Netherlands-based design house Nieuwe Heren likes to ponder a dark future in which we're all fighting for our lives. For example, in anticipation of growing civil unrest designers Erik De Nijs and Tim Smit whipped together a "fashionable and wearable armor" that they call the urban security suit. Now you can run through a storm of government bullets while looking fabulous in bone-lined Kevlar threads.

But the danger they see isn't strictly human-made: It's all around us, in the air. Insidious smog streams flowing from developing countries like China and India are raising air pollution to deadly heights. With moving out of the city or squatting indoors with a towel under the door not an option for many folks, what's a health and style-conscious citizen to do?