Category: FASHION ACCESSORIES
Country: France
By Nadine DeNinno
Published March 5, 2024, 9:42 a.m. ET
This purse appeared on the runway — out of thin air.
Coperni stunned revelers at its Fall 2024 Paris Fashion Week show on Monday by debuting an innovative bag crafted from nothing but air.
The Paris-based fashion label known for previously airbrushing a dress onto a nearly-nude Bella Hadid in the middle of the catwalk partnered with NASA to create the Air Swipe bag, a blink-and-you-miss-it accessory with a translucent appearance.
Coperni partnered with NASA to create the Air Swipe bag. -Getty Images
With a composition of 99% air and 1% glass, the cutting-edge transparent purse weighs only 33 grams — which is just about the same as a standard lightbulb.
Coperni said the cloud-like handbag is the biggest ever object made from the space technology nanomaterial silica aerogel, which is the lightest solid on planet Earth and often used by NASA to capture stardust.
The brand developed the innovative accessory alongside Ioannis Michaloudis, a visual artist and researcher of silica aerogel at the American University of Cyprus. Designers told British Vogue it took 15 prototypes to come to fruition.
The bag’s composition is 99% air and 1% glass.
The purse weighs only 33 grams — which is just about the same as a standard lightbulb. -Getty Images
“It’s scientific, but poetic,” said co-founder and creative director Sébastien Meyer, while CEO and co-founder Arnaud Vaillant described it as “magical, like a cloud.”
“When you hold a piece of silica aerogel, it feels otherworldly,” George Gould, the director of research and development at Aspen Aerogels Inc., told NASA of the material in 2010. “If you drop it on a tabletop, it has an acoustic ring to it. It sounds like a crystal glass hitting the table.”
Otherworldly, indeed: The material was used in NASA’s 1999 Stardust mission, which was the first to bring samples from a comet to Earth. Coperni noted the material can “withstand extreme heat (1200o Celsius) and a pressure of 4,000 times its weight.”
It’s made from the space technology nanomaterial silica aerogel, which is the lightest solid on planet Earth.
Silica aerogel is often used by NASA to capture stardust.
The brand developed the innovative accessory alongside Professor Ioannis Michaloudis, a Greece-based visual artist, academic and researcher of silica aerogel.
The fashion house said that nanomaterial silica aerogel is the “glass of the future” and despite being “very delicate,” the purse is “non-fragile.”
Fans questioned whether the bag — which is shaped just like the brand’s iconic Swipe bag — can even hold anything inside of it, to which Coperni answered, “It can hold an iPhone.”
The label’s co-founders, Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, have become the masters of state-of-the-art, inventive designs in fashion technology. In 2022, Coperni notably went mega-viral online when it staged a spectacle on the runway by spray-painting a white off-the-shoulder dress onto a thong-clad Bella Hadid.
It took 15 prototypes to come to fruition. -Getty Images
The following year, the brand partnered with Boston Dynamics and included the engineering and robotics company’s robo-dogs into the show, as professional bag holders for the likes of Lila Moss.
And it appears this season was no different, with the designers’ focus being out-of-this-world.
“The collection is a whole sci-fi tribute,” Vaillant told Vogue.
Courtesy: NYpost.com
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