Designer wears her chainmail gown and is then shocked with HALF A MILLION volts of electricity

Fashion designers like to make bold and shocking statements with their work, but one designer has taken the aim little more literally.

Dutch artist Anouk Wipprecht created a dress made from metal and used it to conduct electricity from two giant Tesla coils.

Made entirely from chainmail, Ms Wipprecht wore the dress on stage and conducted almost half a million volts as she stood between the coils.

 

The dress consists of a spiked helmet and plate-metal dress secured underneath 600 metal rings.

It was created in partnership with band ArcAttack, which makes music using Tesla coils.

A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant circuit that produces high-voltage, low-current, high frequency electricity.

It features two main sets of windings - a primary, input, and a secondary output. 

Each is made up of a capacitor and an inductor, so they become resonant circuits when voltage is passed through the coils.

The primary winding pushes the voltage through to the second winding, via a spark gap, and this creates the bolt of energy.   

When Ms Wipprecht stood between the coils on stage, the metal in the chainmail dress conducted this energy and pushed it towards the ground. 

The chainmail worked as a Faraday cage - which uses its mesh-like structure to move electrostatic charges and pass them around the outside of the 'cage'. 

This allowed Ms Wipprecht to engage with the arcs in person, while being protected beneath. 

Ms Wipprecht (pictured testing the dress) said electricity travels the shortest path to grounds, so basically the dress functioned to lead the electricity directly to floor instead of raising through her body. She added the challenge was to create an iconic design that would hold up to the power of high-voltage electricity