Bella Hadid's spray-on dress was predicted by visionary author decades ago

Sci-fi of the past saw a lot of modern technological advancements coming, and it was a celebrated author Philip K. Dick who predicted many of them. Having written 40 novels and 121 short stories, he envisioned facial recognition in The Minority Report (1956), 3D printing in Nick And The Glimmung (1966), virtual reality in Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep (1968), the Internet in Ubik (1969), and many other inventions that seemed unrealistic back then but are taken for granted these days.

One of his futuristic predictions materialised at Paris Fashion Week this autumn. Coperni’s spray-on dress was history in the making.

Not sci-fi anymore

For about nine minutes, the audience of Paris Fashion Week watched a white, off-shoulder dress being sprayed onto Bella Hadid’s body. The show was genuinely impressive.

The material applied to the supermodel was a patented spray-on fabric developed by a London-based company called Fabrican, New York Times writes. Though it looked like spider webs at first, the fibrous layers thickened and instantly dried into a pebbled fabric, just like it was envisioned by Philip K. Dick in Galactic Pot-Healer in 1969.

In pictures, the dress appeared to be made of a kind of silk or cotton, but to the touch, it felt soft but elastic, bumpy like a sponge.

The futuristic garment comes off like any other tight, slightly stretchy one - by peeling off and shimmying out. It can be hung and even washed, or put back into the bottle of its original solution to regenerate, according to Coperni’s chief executive, Arnaud Vaillant.

Though the stunning white dress is not strictly sellable, Coperni plans to display it in its showroom.

What is Coperni?

Coperni is basically sci-fi fashion. This Parisian brand was founded in 2013 and named after the Renaissance mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. It focuses on fusing science, craft, and fashion. It has already made headlines once after Doja Cat wore Coperni’s handblown glass bag on the Grammy Awards red carpet. Coperni’s creative director Sébastien Meyer describes himself as ‘a little bit of a geek’, but his futuristic approach definitely works to please the crowds.

Sources used:

- Rolling Stone: '10 Philip K. Dick Future Predictions That Came True'

- New York Times: 'A Spray-On Dress Caused a Ruckus in Paris'

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