The first car hand-wrapped in latex. A design item, that translates this obsession in the most fashionable way by using a sensual material: latex. Highlighting its iconic shape by hiding it.

Since it has never been done before, a specialist was needed: Atsuko Kudo – the world’s most renowned designer for outstanding latex couture, trusted by celebrities.

During the preparation process, Atsuko and her team created countless prototypes, glued together 260 square meters of latex by hand (stripe by stripe) and built a 32 feet wooden platform equipped with 96 feet of suction tubes to fit 4 high-performance suckers.

When everything was in place, the SL was rolled on the platform, carefully hand-wrapped in latex and connected to the suckers, which removed all the air from the installation. Within minutes, the latex fully embraced the entire SL 500, showing more and more of its iconic contours and lines and creating an art object that captured the car’s shape.

A stunning art-installation, the fashion world was obsessed with. The SL 500 hand-wrapped in latex became part of one of the most successful fashion campaigns in Mercedes-Benz history. Visitors of the Fashion Week as well as designers and models with strong media attention recognised and shared it quickly.

The hand-wrapped SL was covered by relevant blogs, renowned magazines like e.g. VOGUE and tabloid TV shows, reaching its highest TV PR-value of all time, generating a total PR value of 19,1m euros.

It became a global conversation in the fashion-world, shaping the brand’s image as a leading design competence.