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Absolutely Abby: Bella Hadid’s spray-on dress that rocked Paris Fashion Week

Bella Hadid’s spray-on dress was the hottest moment of Paris Fashion Week. 

The performance is now the principal feature of Coperni’s website and has become a global talking point across social media platforms. 

On Friday, Sept. 30, Hadid closed the French label Coperni’s Spring-Summer 2023 show with a dress that was sprayed on in front of a live audience. Hadid walked onto the runway wearing nothing but nude underwear before Manel Torres, the creator of the patented Spray-on weaving technology, along with two other scientists, applied the cloudy liquid that transformed into a wearable material in minutes. 

For almost 10 minutes, spectators watched in awe as the team created Coperni’s design in real-time. Following the scientist’s performance, Charlotte Raymond, the label’s head of design, walked on stage and defined the neckline while it was still drying and cut a leg slit– a performance that reminded some fashion week enthusiasts of Alexander McQueen’s famous Spring 1999 show where model Shalom Harlow was spray-painted by two robots while she stood on a rotating turntable. 

This look clearly worked for the Coperni designers and made a statement in Paris Fashion Week; however, the Coperni designers did not make the technology for this liquid fiber. The material was designed by Torres in 2003, the Coperni designers were just the first to put this technology on the runway.  

Coperni’s performance deserves credit within itself because it was innovative to put it on a live runway and spray it onto supermodel Bella Hadid. But, at the end of the day, this is a simple slip-on dress with an off-the-shoulder detail that did not deserve to overshadow all of the other designers that put substantial amounts of time and effort into their Paris Fashion Week looks, such as Victoria Beckham showcasing her label for the first time at Paris Fashion Week. 

If there is something we should take away from the performance, it is the technology itself. 

Although the groundbreaking technology was first developed for the fashion industry, it has the potential to expand into other sectors such as health care, where it has been used to produce casts, bandages, protective hygiene covers and face masks. 

Torres' technology is also a sustainable and ethical way of producing clothing and other materials. The Fabrican material can be re-dissolved and re-sprayed at the end of its life to create entirely new articles of clothing. 

Every year, the world produces 2.12 billion tons of waste, and about half of it comes from the richest countries on the planet. To lower this amount, scientists are attempting to integrate sustainable habits such as biodegradable clothing, and Torres’ mission is on par with these practices as his team is presently working on a pathway that hopes to create 100% compostable materials.

Although Coperni’s idea to showcase the spray-on technology is innovative and has caught the eyes of many, the technology itself deserves to outshine the performance with its potential to change the way we look at the future of fashion and its effect on waste. 

Abby Waechter is a freshman studying strategic communications at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Have something to say? Email Abby at aw087421@ohio.edu or tweet her @AbbyWaechter.

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