Cyberpunk Harness

I wanted to make a glowing costume piece for a cyberpunk event. A lot of my outfit choices were leaning towards either grit and a worn-in aesthetic or a slick corpo vibe, so I wanted to add something extra that could go with both, and because harness can be either a fashion statement or a piece of work equipment, it seemed the natural choice.

After some at home experiments with nylon and various light diffusion experiements, I settled on trying to see who, if anyone, had solved this problem before me, and went hunting for highly flexible light-up materials. Eventually, after some false starts, I settled on using light-up dog leashes as my primary material. Instead of running LEDs along the entire leash, they use diffusion strips with LEDs at each end, which solves several problems at once. Because LED strips are stiff and fragile under tensile stresses, one of the main issues when using them in clothing is that connections can break with movement. Having the light run through a clear, flexible strip solves this issue, making it perfect for repurposing into wearable design. (It also helped that they run on very small batteries, which removes some bulk).

The next challenge was reconfiguring them into a harness that was comfortable, secure, and safe to dance in and power for hours. I experimented with strap layouts, concealed connectors, and battery placement until the final piece balanced impact with practical wearability.