While in Berlin, I had the pleasure of meeting a dynamic couple festooned in LEDs — Anya Hübschle and Till Schneider. Anya sent me some pics of some remarkable costumes they’ve designed, particularly Glow White and Prince Luminous. These dream characters for the couple are not far from the truth of their own lives, as they met at a Fire Festival in Austria and magically fell in love. They are In Love with Fire, which is quite fitting, as they create costumes and perform light shows, both with LEDs and fire.

Anya does most of the design work on the costumes, and put a great deal of effort into these two.  She is definitely a romantic in style.

I wanted to do something with light, but nothing like the typical light warrior style. I wanted to create non modern baroque characters with a modern inside.

White LED stips were used to create the soft glow for the costumes. The skirt presented special challenges as it needed a lot of fabric.

I wanted to hide all the light sources and make the light shine through the fabric, so the fabric would glow like a lampshade. So I used a lot of fabric, ruffles, tulle and so on to get a distance between the LED strips and the outside fabric. I tried it out with many changes; it was a learning process, as always. In the end, the led strips were spiraled up an underskirt, and over that I wear a crinoline and then a final skirt with many ruffles.

LED strips also add glow to Prince Luminous for the pants, as well as the chest area.

Not only are these costumes intricate from a sewing perspective, but Anya came up with her LED ideas alone, without the help of a tutorial or blog. It was a happy moment to meet her in Berlin, as I was able to show her my LED underskirt from my Hunger Games dress. She was so excited to chat with someone that had the same love of costumes and light, and who understood the problems of incorporating flexibility and power.

If you want to add a soft glow in your costume, definitely check out my blog post on my dress, as I talk about stitching casings for LED strips. Then, check out our NeoPixel Über Guide to get details on the best pixel for your project, as well as great coding tips. Your first love is always your strongest, and at Adafruit, I know my first love was definitely NeoPixels. #callmesmitten

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!