Cyberpunk Pollution Masks, Editor’s Picks from China
As the deadliest fire in California’s history rages on, we trawled through over 500 items on China e-commerce behemoth Taobao to find you the most stylish pollution masks on earth today. What we found was better than anything created by this Dutch designer or this Swedish brand and as good as ones that have hit the runway.
Editor’s disclaimer: The featured products below have only been screened for aesthetic beauty – we have not tested or researched their actual effectiveness. To protect yourself against pollution in China, we recommend Airpops, which ensures minimum leakage and has been extensively used by our team. To protect yourself from the California wildfire fumes, we will defer to Wirecutter’s pick of the 3M 9211 Cool-Flow N95 Particulate Sanding Respirator Mask, and failing that please refer to these Washington State Department of Health guidelines. Now without further ado…
Our favorite children’s designs
This design by XTG caught our eye because of its non-functional but aesthetically pleasing eye flaps:
Bulu’s customizable design deserves praise for cleverly camouflaging its two air filter capsule compartments:
But the most compelling sell in the children’s department was this Auberge line of masks, which featured a promo video with two Caucasian children dressed up as Darth Vader and Wonder Woman, running towards the screen with their stylish masks:
Our favorite adult’s designs
This rebellious modern design by SappyGo (“challenging the rules of survival”) stood out from the crowd – its edgy, vector illustrations create some pretty compelling pollution-filtering snouts:
But if you’re a fan of the classics, this line from Malongrat remixes paintings from Van Gogh, allowing you to wear fine art on your face:
Amidst all this ornamentation, sometimes a simple design is the best design. This extensive line of expressions from Fenxing demonstrates this principle with a splendid selfie:
Yet none of these designs compare to the work of Shenzhen’s MeHow, who are single-handedly shining a light towards our cyberpunk future with their vibrant, custom-knitted female and male butterfly designs – and, we’re proud to announce, recipients of our 88 Bartender’s Choice Award Winner for pollution masks in 2018!
Lastly: a consolation prize
A shoutout to these young models from ASL who are trying hard to make this incredibly unglamorous snout form factor work:
Better luck next time.