This Inflatable Dress Will Preserve Your Personal Subway Space

There’s a lot of creeps sketching around the subway systems of the world. Hence the invention of the Personal Space Dress, a Hello Kitty-pink apparatus that blows up like a puffer fish whenever someone gets too close for comfort.

The Verge reports that the dress, which looks like the result of a genetic experiment involving a hoop skirt and an umbrella, is the work of Kathleen McDermott, an artist based out of Hong Kong. It’s one of a series of “Urban Armor” projects, wearable-tech fashion experiments that “help women assert control over their personal/public space,” like a scarf with sensors able to detect cigarette smoke. Unfortunately, the dress is more art project than market-testing prototype. But there are D.I.Y. instructions available for the ambitious crafters out there.

Personally, I’d like a version that’s a little less cute and a little more aggro. More along these lines: