Bella Hadid’s Spray-Painted Coperni Dress: The Science Behind It Is Disclosed in Closer Detail
The future is now! Imagine yourself waking up in the morning, grudgingly rubbing the sleep from your eyes, cursing whoever thought working from 9 to 5 was a good idea. At least you don’t have to worry about what to wear! Simply take a can off the shelf and spray it on your attire!
The dress that was sprayed on and created on supermodel Bella Hadid during Coperni’s fashion show on Friday has made headlines and gone viral almost as quickly as the spray-on cloth settled onto her skin. However, the future may not be that close just yet.
Nobody could deny that Bella looked lovely, but many people have doubts about how this was achieved, whether it is sustainable, and how this would have looked on someone who doesn’t have a model-like form. All of these inquiries are reasonable, but let’s focus on the first one first: what is the science behind the widely publicized white dress?
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The final item from Coperni’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection, a dress that was built onto Bella Hadid’s body on the runway, has become a talking point of Paris Fashion Week.

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The final presentation of Coperni’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection last Friday was an amazing demonstration of creativity and fashion love.
Bella Hadid, a 25-year-old supermodel, grabbed attention as she left the house wearing nothing but a nude thong. She was standing on a lit pedestal as two guys began sewing a snow-white dress directly onto her body.
The 25-year-old beauty caught everyone’s attention as she strutted around virtually nude while perched on a lit pedestal and having two men spray liquid-like cloth onto her flesh.

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Bella’s torso was covered in a thin layer of fabric in just over nine minutes. Charlotte Raymond, the head of design at Coperni, arrived to remove the excess fabric and mold the garment into its final shape after giving the fabric some time to settle. Charlotte created something extraordinary by lowering the shoulder straps, shortening the bottom to mid-calf, and including a slit on Bella’s left leg.
Due to Bella’s busy schedule during Paris Fashion Week, the piece was not previously rehearsed with her, which added to the charm and demonstrated the expertise of the dress’s engineers, designers, and Bella herself. A model filled in for Bella the night before the performance, but when the icy material touched Bella’s skin on the runway, she shivered uncontrollably.
Bella’s torso was covered in a thin coating of white fabric in just over nine minutes. Charlotte Raymond, the head of design at Coperni, gave the outfit its final shape.

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“I was so nervous,” Bella remarked behind the scenes because it would have been her first time getting sprayed. She concealed it, though. She was both steely and delicate, occasionally raising her arms in an elegant gesture above her head or giving the persons tending to her a small grin. I essentially simply took on the persona of whoever she is.
Wasn’t it cold up there? “Honey, cold is an understatement,” Bella said, as reported by the NYTimes. “I really blacked out.” Yet as soon as she left the runway, she felt like the performance had been a “pinnacle moment” in her career.
“I think that was the best moment of my life,” she told crew, friends, and fellow models, such as Kylie Jenner, who had gathered to congratulate Bella and touch the alien dress on her body.
Due to her busy schedule during Paris Fashion Week, Bella had not previously practiced the scene; she explained, “I kind of simply became the role, whatever she is.”

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Let’s explore the dress’s scientific foundations. They used a spray-on fabric in collaboration with Doctor Manel Torres, the founder and managing director of Fabricant Ltd, which, once applied, dries to produce wearable, non-woven material. It can be manufactured from a variety of fibers, including wool, cotton, nylon, cellulose, and carbon nanofibers, as well as natural and synthetic fibers.
Since 2003, Doctor Torres has been working on this complex piece of equipment out of the London Bioscience Innovation Center. Using a spray gun or aerosol, a liquid suspension—a finely dispersed material in a liquid that is not dissolved—is applied to a surface to produce fabric. An immediate non-woven fabric is produced by the cross-linking of fibers, which stick together.
Coperni Dr. Manel Torres, the founder of Fabricant Ltd., and his team collaborated to develop the spray-on fabric that dries to produce a wearable, non-woven textile.

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They think cutting-edge ideas can transform other industries and be utilized for more than only making exquisite clothing. The fabric can be used to make bandages because it is sterile, as was mentioned on BBC’s The Imagineers. It can be hard enough that it can serve as a cast for shattered bones. The fabric can also be used to clean up after accidents involving oil tankers because it can absorb oil, which is arguably the most important.
It will be interesting to watch how far this multidisciplinary and innovative technology can advance.
“We wanted to dedicate this moment to Dr Torres, because we respect what he does so much,” explained Arnaud Vaillant, the co-founder of Coperni. “We felt that it was absolutely necessary that he led the performance—to us, that makes the experience even more magical.”
“We thought that it was extremely vital that [Doctor Manel] spearhead the performance,” said Arnaud Vaillant, a co-founder of Coperni.

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Despite the outfit seemed to be made of cotton or silk in photographs, people who were close enough to touch it discovered that it was actually made of a soft, elastic material that felt rough and soft like a sponge. Arnaud claims that the dress was removed by peeling it off and shimmying it out, just like any other tight, slightly stretchy garment. It can be rinsed and hung up to dry, or it can be replenished by reintroducing it to the original solution.
It will be on display in Coperni’s showroom as a historical artifact.

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Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant created the ultra-chic ready-to-wear and accessories line Coperni in Paris. Since their 2013 founding, the duo has been searching for the point where fashion and technology converge, “marrying painstaking origami-like technique with a neat,’sportif’ form.”
The company made the decision to push the limits of fashion technology even farther for its Spring/Summer 2023 collection. According to Arnaud, “It’s our celebration of women’s silhouettes from centuries ago,” according to Vogue. Sébastien continued, “And we wanted to update our style in a more mature and scientific way, too.
The clothing appeared to be composed of some sort of silk or cotton at first view, but up close it was rough like a sponge. Coperni intends to exhibit the outfit in its boutique.

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The 38 ready-to-wear pieces and accessories on display during the exhibition, which was presented in the Salle des Textiles at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, toyed with historical proportions and motifs. The pieces combined the past with the present, indicating a possible future through exaggerated hips, squared shoulders, excessive padding, and daring and revealing cuts.
The fact that the event has become absolutely viral is not surprising. It featured “several of the internet’s favorite things,” including a nearly-naked supermodel and nostalgia for 1990s fashion, as Jessica Testa observed.
The cutting-edge idea has potential applications beyond only manufacturing elaborate clothing, including medical bandages and absorbing oil in the event of an oil spill.

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Additionally, it has been compared to Lee Alexander McQueen’s Spring 1999 runway presentation, where two robots spray-painted a Shalom Harlow outfit. Arnaud claims that this was “completely different,” despite the similarities, while the Coperni designers reject any homage or connection to the late designer.
It’s our responsibility as designers, Sébastien said to Vogue, “to explore new things and depict a potential future. Although we won’t be making any money from this, it is a lovely moment and an emotional one.
We’re excited to watch how this technology develops going forward, but one thing is for sure: that day, a piece of fashion history was made.

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What could have been the meaning of this piece, given that nothing occurs without a reason? It appears that the dress’s main purpose was to create drama during its making. An event that will go down in fashion history; a body made immortal by apparel. not just any person.
In keeping with the premise of their presentation, one could argue that they chose the one model who has been regarded as one of the most beautiful women of the modern era, immortalizing her beauty for future generations to look back on as a part of history.