Coperni‘s spectacular – and wildly viral – spring-summer 2023 finale could easily be a separate fashion show in its own right. The whole process lasted around seven minutes. Bella Hadid came out in her underwear, arm across her bosom, and stood on an underlit platform. What followed was down, Arnaud Vaillant said, to “our little geek” Sebastien Meyer’s specific obsession with cutting edge technology. A scientist Meyer had befriended named Dr. Manel Torres came out with a colleague and proceeded to spray the near-naked Hadid from neckline to mid-calf with a white substance that looked a bit like spray snow. When it hit her skin it had the sheen of liquid, but in the few minutes of its application it became matte. The smell, strong and synthetic, filled the Musée des Arts et Métiers’ Salle des Textiles. Hadid kept her poise during the spray-down, before one of Meyer and Vaillant’s colleagues came out and spent a minute cutting at the hem and tugging at the shoulder of the layer of who-knows-what that covered the model. And then Hadid walked the runway in a pure white dress – perfectly fitted – hat until five minutes ago had been liquid in a bottle: fashion alchemy. The final look apart, the rest of the “Femme” collection felt rather plain and flat. Highlights had included dresses made in a thousand pieces of embroidered glass that tinkled uproariously, like a recycling truck driven by an amphetamine-addled getaway driver. Other dresses came in panels connected by a sort of brutal metal suture. There was a solid gold version of the designers’ Swipe bag which – all 1kg of it – will be melted down after the show. It was created by an artisan goldsmith named Gabriele Veneri in Italy, and was accompanied by a considerable security retinue. No one got a clue what was the point behind it, expect for another “viral” moment. In the next seasons, the Coperni boys should definitely focus on their new, hi-tech patent for making a dress – or any other piece of clothing – and try making it the future of fashion.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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