March 4, 2023 |
Robo dogs in yellow and gadget girls in black. That’s what Coperni’s AW23 catwalk was made of. While the five Boston Dynamics-made mechanical canines – all named Spot – were like one part Mars rover, one part Sony walkman, the clothes they peeled off model’s bodies with their steely snouts were as if from a dream.
Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant reimagined the famed 1688 fable of Jean de la Fontaine, the 17th century author of The Wolf and the Lamb, this season. His rather brutal tale demonstrates their mutual taming and cohabitation until *spoiler* the lamb gets it. It raised, for the designers, the question: “Who are the wolves and the lambs in the contemporary social configurations?” On the catwalk, they were cyber hounds and humans respectively, but Meyer and Vaillant glossed over the savage end that meets the lamb; they wanted to show, instead, that there is neither a dominant nor a dominated – that the man and the machine live in harmony.
So, inspired by the reinterpreted tale, the duo sent sensual clobber for protection and utility out into the expansive atrium – 70 percent of which was made from recycled materials. Slinky spandex tops and dresses were expertly manipulated, draped and pleated – some with appreciative printed hands in charge of the cinching. A gigantic shaggy coat in reflective nylon brought in a bit of techno futurism and was followed by hybrid biker style jackets and utility trousers. Inverted collar capelets came paired with knee-high wellies, alongside mixed-material tailoring and textural knits. The buzzy blown glass bags were nowhere to be seen, but their absence was remedied by a 3D-printed mini swipe bag that quite literally incorporated a meteorite into its construction. There were pieces featuring human re-paintings of AI-generated images of The Wolf and The Lamb too, usually with a robo-dog in place of the wolf.
After last season’s viral Bella Hadid spray-on dress, Coperni’s clear compulsion to serve the viral appetite is still voracious, with this tech-lead theatrical coup serving the essential ingredients for nourishment. This is another page for the fashion history books.
Photography by Christina Fragkou.
