Protective gas masks have recently received a fashionable makeover.
Just because the world is going to end soon, doesn’t mean you can’t look good. With all the Asians in New York wearing those horrible hospital masks, it was really only a matter of time before someone decided to dial up the fashion a few notches. The first “social gas mask” was recently invented, designed for chemical warfare or just to purify the air if you are terrified of airborne illnesses.
Created by Israeli industrial designer Zlil Lazarovich, the mask is touted as being perfect for “social interactions like movie nights on the couch” because it exposes the top half of the face. She also designed the filters to emulate a smiling shape, because people should still make an effort to smile even during a nuclear winter.
Lazarovich remembers the Gulf War in 1991, when her parents put a gas mask on her and hid in chemically sealed rooms for extended periods of time, so obviously the project has personal meaning for her.
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The goal of the redesigned gas mask is to make the idea of chemical warfare less scary, so we aren’t all just sitting in our basements looking like creepy praying mantises.
I am one of those people who thinks the idea of an apocalypse is kind of exciting, so having a cutesy gas mask like this would probably hamper my aspirations of world domination. I imagine it will only be a matter of time before they pop up all over Chinatown, though.
