secure couture by ayelet fishman from israel

Secure Couture - Self Defense Fashion.

A collection of empowering objects for women's self defense.

Walking alone at night is a very common and unpleasant situation for many women.
Today's self defense tools can be divided into 2 groups - martial art courses and self defense "weapons". These are not as effective as we think.
First of all, they are all designed by men. Second of all they have a very negative psychological effect on women as they produce feelings of helplessness and recognition with fear. They acquire knowledge, skills and practice. Most of them are not intuitive and uncomfortable to carry around. Most night time street attacks can be prevented just by showing enough self confidence, which today's tools do not provide being most women don't believe that they would actually use them in time of need.

In my project I focused on preventing these night time street attacks by instilling empowering emotions in women and if necessary giving them the ability to act on the most intuitive defense actions. The design characteristics of the objects I created are based on animal and human defense mechanisms, such as the element of surprise, "second skin", instinctive and aggressive action, revealed and hidden elements.
One of my main goals was to implement these objects in fashion accessories that every woman has and will not draw attention.
Knowing what she has in her hand and feeling comfortable with it will instill self confidence in her, it will show and it shall reduce her chances to be attacked.
Unfortunately, there are always exceptions, and in that case she can use these objects to defend herself physically.

All of the objects are based on the principal of concentrating pressure (like getting hit by the corner of a table, or the thin edge of a ruler).
They are all made out of real leather and the lining is powder colored satin to enhance the contradiction of soft and hard, like a cat's paw. In all of the objects are metal and fiberglass cast parts that are sewn into the stitches, or burst out of the lining to indicate the place of the physical function.
In the glove there are sharpened metal tacks sewn in between the lining and the stitches and function as small blades (like cat nails).
The bag's base is made out of thin metal ribs that burst out of the bottom and side and become sharp corners. The hold of the bag is internal which creates a better grip so the bag can't drop from your hand, and protects the knuckles from getting hit.
Inside the belt there is a strap of flexible fiberglass with changing weight, and the fake buckle becomes a handle to pull out the strap. The pulling of the strap out of the belt with the weight change gives it momentum and strengthens the hit.