Bella Hadid in Coperni’s spray-dress: Explained
A 10-minute performance that left the fashion audience in awe. Bella Hadid’s nude body being covered in a spray-to-measure dress went viral and we want to know more about this fabric and its potential.
Coperni’s Spring/Summer ‘23 show was one of the main highlights of this Paris Fashion Week, greatly due to the spray-formance of Bella Hadid. No one would dare to disagree that Bella looked anything other than stunning, yet the questions that came after the show permeate the minds of many: how was this possible; is this sustainable; how would this have looked on someone with a not-so-modelesque body?
Dr. Manel Torres and a team of specialists appeared onstage alongside Bella to execute the spray-dress for the grand finale.
Torres, Managing Director of Fabrican Ltd and inventor of the spray-on fabric, conceived this Tissue-on-Spray idea on 1995. After getting a PhD diploma on 2001 for his work on this innovative fabric, he established Fabrican Ltd. on 2003. Today, based at the London Bioscience Innovation Centre in London, the spray-on-fabric tissue has various applications besides Ready-to-Wear pieces.
The fabric itself is formed by the cross-linking of fibers which adhere to each other and to the surface sprayed to create an instant non-woven fabric. The versatility of a sprayable fabric coating that seamlessly conforms to any shape removes technical and economic barriers to offer consumers customised products.
Fabrican’s spray technology enable producers to adjust the physical properties of the product (shape, size, texture, colour—even scent) in order to suit each customer’s specification. The company uses different types of fibers, from natural to synthetic, including keratin fibers such as wool and mohair, cotton, nylon, cellulose, and carbon nano fibers.
“Fabrican technology is capturing the imagination of designers, industry and the public around the world. The technology has been developed for industrial applications, as well as for personal and healthcare, decorative and fashion/apparel products.”
— Fabrican Ltd.
Things to know about Spray-on-Fabric:
It’s Green: Working with greener, non-volatile organic compounds, Fabrican’s spray-on fabric technology uses no ozone-depleting substances.
It’s recyclable: it compresses the industrial supply chain, making it more efficient, and reduces reliance on overseas component suppliers, thereby reducing its carbon footprint.
It’s environmental: their ethos is to provide industry with production processes that reduce environmental impacts.
“We wanted to dedicate this moment to Dr Torres, because we respect what he does so much. We felt that it was absolutely necessary that he led the performance – to us, that makes the experience even more magical.”
— Coperni’s co-founder Arnaud Vaillant.
Although the Tissue-on-Spray invention was already highlighted in Times magazine as one of the best inventions of 2010, it is only now that the fabric has made a major debut in the fashion industry core.
While in pictures the dress looked to be made of a kind of silk or cotton, those who got close enough to touch it discovered that it felt soft but elastic, bumpy like a sponge. According to Vaillant, the dress was taken off like any other tight, slightly stretchy one: a process of peeling off and shimmying out. It can be hung and washed, or put back into the bottle of its original solution to regenerate.
Coperni does plan to display it in its showroom as a piece of history.
