  The proximity effect in condensed matter physics is a mechanism that
naturally produces weak superconductivity. We argue that a braneworld can
similarly produce a low-energy breaking of the electroweak symmetry, provided
that in addition to the "normal" region, occupied by the conventional phase of
QCD, there is a bulk region where the color is in an anisotropic (layered)
state with a larger confinement scale. The W and Z bosons, as well as the
quarks, acquire masses by scattering off the layered region. A peculiar feature
of this scenario is that the strongly interacting sector responsible for the
symmetry breaking can be much lighter than the conventional 1 TeV.
