For 15 years, Mercedes-Benz has been the main global sponsor of the Fashion Week – the world’s most relevant fashion show. Twice a year, the brand promotes a different car model as a communication item during the event. Locations include: Tokyo, Amsterdam, Moscow, Beijing, London, Berlin and many more.

For Autumn/Winter 2016, the brand featured the legendary SL 500. A car people become obsessed with because of its iconic shape. The task was to highlight its shape to reach a fashion-related audience worldwide. To achieve this, a special fashion material was used.

The SL 500 was the first car hand-wrapped in latex. So it had to be done by the best in the business: Atsuko Kudo–renowned for outstanding latex couture and trusted by global celebrities.

For preparation, she created countless prototypes, glued together 260 square meters of latex by hand and built a 32 feet wooden- platform equipped with 96 feet of suction tubes to fit 4 high-performance suckers.

The SL 500 was then rolled on the platform, carefully 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, creating an art installation that captured the car’s shape; highlighting its iconic shape by hiding it.

It was displayed during the FashionWeek, attracting visitors to the iconic SL 500 shape like they have never experienced it before.

Since a car has never been packaged in latex, 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.

After that, the SL was rolled on the platform, carefully 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.