Pininfarina designs a motorcycle helmet

As far as Pininfarina -- one of the most influential forces in the car design world -- is concerned, the problem with helmets is that they look like cheap plastic easter eggs no matter what percentage of the shell's composition is carbon fiber or kevlar. The solution? Hide the shell and all its ugly vents under a sheet of fabric. There's actually three enormous scoops in the helmet above, but you can't see them because they're concealed. The fabric not only creates the illusion of a hat rather than a

Furthering the illusion of headwear over safety equipment, the visor continues through a band that surround the helmet's entirety, it looks like a set of goggles.

There's no details on the material used other than that it's a "transpiring technical fabric," so we'll assume that it's something like gore-tex, allowing moisture from sweat to escape while keeping the elements at bay. Despite the overly fashiony nature of this particular helmet, we think the idea has a lot of merit and could even have one benefit that Pininfarina hasn't predicted: by providing a skin-like layer on top of the hard surface, this helmet can absorb some of the rotational energy created by friction with impacted surfaces. This is something that the Lazer SuperSkin technology is trying to push and it makes total sense. Like the skin on top of your skull, it'll slide and tear when rubbing along an abrasive surface rather than applying undue rotational forces to your neck, thereby working to prevent some neck and spinal cord injuries. Of course, we'd worry more about our pretty faces than our necks in a helmet this open, but that doesn't mean we couldn't see something similar applied to a full face.

Pininfarina

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