Face masks to decoy t-shirts: The rise of anti-surveillance fashion

Altering people’s looks to cheat cameras has become increasingly popular with artists and designers in recent years, as the use of facial recognition has grown more pervasive, raising fears over privacy, according to fashion experts.

From sunglasses to face masks, numerous wearable devices promising a veil of anonymity are making their way into the mainstream, said Henry Navarro Delgado, an art and fashion professor at Canada’s Ryerson University.

“There has always been something subversive about streetwear, and one of the new areas of subversion is definitely surveillance and, in particular, facial recognition,” he said.

In Hong Kong, for example, protesters against a bill that would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial have sought to avoid surveillance by wearing masks and dressing in black.