Bella Hadid, arguably one of the most iconic and beautiful supermodels in the world broke some new ground at the Paris fashion week in October. Instead of striding onto the catwalk dressed in a stunning new creation by one of the world’s top fashion designers, she instead walked on wearing nothing but a G-string, her hands cupped over her breasts much to the surprise of those attending. This was the grand finale of the Coperni fashion show, and what a treat the audience was in for!
Enter Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillan, designers for Coperni. They came up with a design of their own i n front of a fashion throng, and that design was created utilising Fabrican and 3-D technology and then sprayed onto Hadid’s body. It flexed like a second skin and moulded to her figure perfectly. In the world of fashion, this technology can be utilised to create an entire dress, as shown on Hadid, or even to fix worn-out, broken items of clothing. Their goal is to introduce this technology to the medical field so that casts or sterile bandages can be sprayed on.
“Fashion designers need new materials and fabrics to create products to address evolving lifestyles and consumer demands,” remarked the show notes. “In the 21st century we should make it the first time that science and design really march together in close step, illustrating in this way their interdependence.”
Dr. Manel Torres, a can of silly thread, and the history of the spray-on clothing are where it all began. In a 2013 TED Talk, he stated, “I believed I could create a mist. The “aha” moment occurred then. Torres, a fashion design student, had the notion to spray on a T-shirt (imagine a spider web, he said), but he lacked the skills to make such a thing. He brought his ideas to Imperial College in London, which is renowned for its breakthroughs. They supported his proposal and provided him with resources, including a lab, replete with different materials to experiment with. He struggled for two years before starting to see results after much trial and error.
A stunning way to showcase this remarkable new technology, on none other but Bella Hadid. It’ll be interesting to see what else the future has to hold with regards to Fabrican and whether or not it’ll see any mainstream applications!
