As NYC’s Fashion Week draws to a close it is perhaps more apparent than ever how fast trends come and go. Last year it was colored denim, this year it’s metallic brocade, and the styles featured on the runways this week will be old by the time the season they’re mean to be worn (spring) actually rolls around. But with big ticket items like cars the frenzy to constantly change style hasn’t caught on just yet. To buy shoes in order to update your look from black heels to the latest cobalt shade requires 5 seconds of looking online, and 2 days for amazon shipping. A change to your car color is a whole other story. It entails either buying a new one, or more likely painting it, waiting for it to dry, and even more frustratingly, waiting at least 4 weeks for it to cure.
Wrapping technology changes this, so there’s no excuse for your car not to be as trendy as your coat. Nowadays you can change the color of your car with a wrap that not only changes its color, but also protects it from the heat and grit and slush of a road. Technically called “wrapping film” a wrap is sort of like shrink wrapping meets wallpapering, and is better seen than explained.
Watch installers wrap a Porsche in 60 seconds.
Companies like Avery Dennison and 3M manufacture these wraps. The company actually digitally prints a color (or a design) onto the wrap. The sky is the limit for the color- match your dress or nail polish if you’re so inclined, since any color is doable. Then people apply it to your car. The wrap is very labor-intensive, so most of the cost is in the labor. Most skilled wrappers (“installers”) have been certified, and you find them just by looking around carwraps.net, the web equivalent of a wrap phone-book. The wrap has no drying time so it takes only as long as the installers take to put it on, which is typically a day or two. Once they’re done you can zoom off in it and enjoy this year’s color before it goes the way of last year’s fashions.