Japan designer hoping balloon dress takes off

TOKYO - The latest in dresses from one Japanese designer is feather-light, see-through and comes with an unusual warning: Watch out for needles.

It's a dress made from balloons - 200 of them, to be exact. The crystal-clear creation is the latest in balloon couture from balloon artist Rie Hosokai, who won international prizes at Belgium's annual "The Millennium Jam" balloon festival for her skill at twisting and weaving the light, latex toys into dresses. "There are latitudinal and longitudinal balloons to be woven together, so it's quite similar to fabric," the 35-year-old Hosokai said recently, as she deftly manipulated balloons into a transparent mini dress.

All the work is done by hand, and Hosokai said it can be hard to account for the amount of air when adjusting the size and volume of the dress. The garment, worn with white underwear and co-designed by Hosokai's husband Takashi Kawada, was modeled for photographers with the warning, "Watch out for needles".