Pénélope Flouret
Edited by Leah Gilbert
Personally, you will not find me heading to campus sporting a freshly spray-painted on dress to sit in on lectures and then continue with my day, flouncing the dress up to the hot dog stand. However, although not the most practical school outfit, Coperni has made doing so possible. Coperni has designed an innovative spray-on dress. Modeled by Bella Hadid for their Spring/Summer 2023 collection, the dress broke the internet and brought to light how the brand is changing the fashion game once and for all.
The dress, which was famously sprayed onto Hadid – who had emerged onto the runway in just underwear and walked out in an off-the-shoulder gown – was made of Fabrican. Fabrican is a spray-on material that transforms into a wearable textile once it’s shaped using human hands. They then morph the dress until they are satisfied with the outcome. The substance that comes out of the bottle is quite cold and eventually turns into fabric. On The runway was the first time that Hadid was sprayed with the material. During rehearsal, the stand-in model could barely stop herself from shivering for the 15 minutes that it took to get the dress on and ready to go.
Coperni came into the spotlight in 2013 after its creation by Sébastian Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, two French designers who ended up getting married in the summer of 2020. They are the brains behind the company, both with a passion for technology and changing how consumers interact with fashion. Vaillant has a lot of experience in the fashion industry, having worked at major fashion houses from Courrègesto Balenciaga before deciding to partner with Meyer, who helped him build his company’s reputation.
Since then, the two have been unstoppable in breaking down fashion barriers and leaving guests jaw-dropped after every show, making us believe that nothing is impossible on the runway.
The spray-on dress was not the first time people had the name Coperni on the tips of their tongues. During their Fall/Winter 2022 runway show, they showcased their collaboration with Heven, a glassware company located in Brooklyn. Stars like Gigi Hadid clutched their glass purses on the runway, which could break at any point.
More recently, their Fall/Winter 2023 show was out of this world, with the models strutting down the runway alongside robot dogs. Vaillant and Meyer flew to Boston to partner with Boston Dynamics and get the chance to have five robotic dogs named Spots walking on the runway. These dogs were interacting with the models, holding their bags and even taking off a model’s coat, which is what happened to model Rianne van Rompaey, all part of the show, of course.
Vaillant and Meyer love working with Lila Moss, the iconic Kate Moss’ daughter, who has been passed the fashion baton from her mother’s generation of models and has walked in various shows like Coperni, Fendi, and Versace. Most recently, she has appeared in Coperni’s campaign, not physically but in a digitized version in a 40-second clip called The Wolf and the Lamb inspired by Jean de La Fontaine’s fable Le Loup et L’agneau.
The video will run for a span of six months on the company’s website, playing different stories and scenarios, all featuring outfits from Coperni’s collection. Over the summer, Coperni and Lila worked together, and her body was scanned to make her digitized version look identical to her. Each scenario is selected randomly by a host machine, changing stories every 40 seconds, thus adding up to about 320,000 different stories, each with different scenery, music, and looks. Every time someone goes on to the Coperni website, they will see these videos pop up and be able to watch them.
On September 29, Coperni changed the game of fashion once more as models walked down the runway at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics and Music or IRCAM, a top public research company that focuses on musical expression along with scientific research; this being a research focus that is perfectly in sync with what Coperni stands for. Models walked down the runway, following top model Naomi Campbell, who had opened the show. One model sported a gold-plated off-the-shoulder top, and the show wouldn’t be complete without a bag making another show-stopping appearance. This time, the bag was not made out of glass but resembled a Discman.
All in all, Coperni is changing how fashion is represented on the runway and worn. It has become a show that people cannot wait to watch every season. Those who can’t attend have begun leaving hundreds of comments on Coperni’s Instagram begging for them to stream the show live so every day, people just like us can witness what Coperni does best all together.
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