The clothes are in fact a gold-yellow dress and a metallic-denim jacket and contain cotton fabrics coated with nanoparticles that give them functional qualities never before seen in the fashion world. The designed clothes can prevent colds and flu, never need washing, destroy harmful gases and protect the wearer from smog and air pollution.

This has brought the fashion industry tag "functional clothing" to an entirely new level. It has been a collaborative project involving fiber scientists and fashion designers, so that once the technological issues have been solved, the resulting clothes could also be worn like regular garments, without making the wearer look like he just stepped off a bad "space invaders" movie from the 50s.

Cornell University student Olivia Ong, together with fiber science assistant professor Juan Hinestroza and his postdoctoral researcher Hong Dong, in the College of Human Ecology's Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, infused the clothes with some unusual properties by using nanofibers.

"We think this is one of the first times that nanotechnology has entered the fashion world," Hinestroza said. Unfortunately, the single disadvantage would be the price: one square yard of nano-treated cotton would cost about $10,000.

At a first glance, the clothes look ordinary and quite stylish actually, but a closer inspection using a microscope reveals an army of electrostatically charged nanoparticles creating a protective shield around the cotton fibers in the top part of the dress and the sleeves, hood and pockets of the jacket.

"It's something really moving toward the future, and really advanced," said Ong, who graduates in December and aspires to design school. "I thought this could potentially be what fashion is moving toward."

The manufacturing process involves dipping the cloth in solutions containing nanoparticles synthesized in the lab. The metallic colors that result are not the product of dyes applications, but rather, reflections of manipulation of particle size or arrangement.

The upper part of the dress contains cotton that has been coated with silver nanoparticles. She first created positively charged cotton fibers using ammonium- and epoxy-based reactions, inducing positive ionization. The resulting silver particles are 10-20 nanometers across (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter) were synthesized in citric acid, to prevent nanoparticle agglomeration.

The natural antibacterial qualities of silver, strengthened at the nanoscale, give the dress the ability to deactivate many hazardous bacteria and viruses. In addition, the silver infusion reduces the need to wash the clothes, since it destroys bacteria, and the small size of the particles prevents soiling and stains.

The jacket made of denim has a hood, sleeves and pockets produced with soft, gray tweed cotton that has been embedded with palladium nanoparticles, about 5-10 nanometers in length. To create the material, Dong placed negatively charged palladium crystals onto positively charged cotton fibers.

The dress and jacket are now part of the student's new clothes collection, called "Glitterati"