The Moment
Paris Fashion Week, September 2022, at the Salle des Textiles in the Musée des Arts et Métiers. Supermodel Bella Hadid walked out in nothing but nude underwear, standing still on a spotlighted stage. In front of a silent crowd, two men began to spray what looked like paint directly onto her body. In minutes, a minimalist white dress formed in real time, shaped by the hands of Coperni’s head of design and a technician. The crowd was stunned. Phones were out. A viral moment was born.
The material was Fabrican, a patented spray-on fiber that hardens into wearable fabric. The creators of the moment? Coperni, the Parisian fashion label founded by Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, in collaboration with Manel Torres, the Spanish scientist and inventor behind Fabrican. The result was part performance art, part fashion innovation, but most definitely, a cultural breakthrough.
The Why
The goal was to explore how fashion can become more immediate, less wasteful, and more adaptive to the wearer’s needs. Manel Torres, who’s been developing Fabrican since the early 2000s, envisioned a future where clothing could be created on-demand aiming to reduce textile waste, transport costs, and mass production emissions.
“We wanted to do something that felt more science than fashion,” said Meyer. Coperni has long drawn inspiration from science and its momentum. The brand takes its name from astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who redefined our place in the universe by proving the Sun, not the Earth, was at its center. With this spectacle, Coperni reminds us that humans must move with evolution, not stand in its way.
It was also a moment in time to question: can high fashion still be relevant if it doesn’t evolve?
Sustainability in Focus
The viral-ity of this moment amongst Gen-Z and TikTok users should not be a surprise. In 2025, the conversation around sustainability in fashion is louder and more urgent than ever. Recent summits like the Global Fashion Agenda’s Copenhagen edition and the Future Fabrics Expo continue to put pressure on brands to move from symbolism to systems change.
However, symbolic moments matter too. Here at KHAMSA, we never underestimate the importance of art in lending relevance and buzz to further strengthen efforts in political, economic, and social development. In that way, the spray-on dress asks: what if every viral runway look also carried a message? And why aren’t more brands using their platform to propose futures that are more sustainable, not just more aesthetic?
What It Means Now
Nearly three years later, the Coperni spectacle still circulates in conversations about fashion’s next era. Still, we must think critically in viral moments like this. The dress hasn’t been mass-produced because the material still faces limits. Upon closer look, Fabrican’s aerosol delivery uses more chemicals, energy, and generates waste, with recycling complications for pressurized cans. Martin Mulvihill, a chemist, warned it was “the least efficient, most problematic delivery device”.
Yet, the cultural memory of that spray and the way it captivated an entire industry shows how powerful one image can be. Some call it a missed opportunity to embed science efficiently in fashion while others celebrated the social impact it had. We believe that it was a more iconic one, than not.
Popularizing the Future
This generation welcomed this moment with open arms, doubled Coperni’s profits over 2021, and called it fashion history. It just might be that anything is possible for creatively demanding sustainability in the development of high fashion.
We don’t need another dress. What we need is more moments that pursue systematic change and force the industry and the consumer, alike, to dream forward. The spray-on dress did just that. And that’s why it still matters.
