The 21rst century has been an era of transformation. From flip phones to touch screens, board games to virtual reality, and even classrooms to iPads, technology has changed the way humanity functions. However, one technological transformation is often forgotten about: fashion.
Fashion has seen crazy inventions over the past 20 years including new, sustainable fabrics, cloth-embedded microsensors that can monitor human vitals, or, in the world of high fashion, LED-lined robotic dresses. More specifically, Zendaya’s Cinderella-inspired dress at the 2019 Met Gala.
Zendaya’s dress was produced by a team of highly skilled designers and engineers that produced the revolutionary gown in only 6 weeks. To accomplish this, the team focused on four main pieces of technology: LED, robotics, wireless power, and software.
The first and most apparent piece of technology was the LEDs. After first trying to use thermochromic dye to create the “magic” effect and failing, the designers looked to LED lights. They used side-emitting LED tape to line the bodice and skirt of her dress, purposefully diffusing it with as little fabric as possible to make the color as vibrant as possible. The fabrics that were chosen to compliment the LED show were a satiny front illuminating fabric placed all over and organza and tulle placed on the skirt to add the look of natural movement.
To make the LEDs sparkle and make the skirt grow, the designers worked a robotics system into the dress that could be triggered remotely at any time, repeatedly. Powered by 450 portable watts (which is a lot for LED lights) and drone Lithium Polymer batteries totalling 29600mAh, the Cinderella ensemble had enough charge to start a fire, and it would have if it had any unfused shorts. To minimize the risk of any flames, the robotics and power sources were covered by a silicone heat resistance mat. Despite all the precautions taken, the dress was not approved to be worn for an extended period of time as the fireproofing was not built to last and there were concerns regarding the high voltage on a garment.
The final piece to the Cinderella puzzle was the software. Combining the skills of LED, robotics, and power, the software created for the dress completely brought it to life. The developers focused on the “life” aspect of this by trying to create the most organic movement in both the lights and skirt. For those of you familiar with coding, one of the engineers on the project cited “fadeToBlackBy()” and “random()” commands as being wildly helpful in creating the magical and natural movements we all saw on the red carpet.
Zendaya’s Cinderella look is a great example of the hidden technology all around us. Although it’s an avant-garde piece of equipment, it includes the fundamentals of technology. Recognizing and analyzing pieces like this can help our society expand our technological opportunities so that we can think outside the box- or pumpkin carriage!
Source: https://medium.com/@harishpersad/led-technology-at-the-met-gala-cd610c729d22
As a fashion lover who religiously watches the Met Gala red carpet every year, I loved this post and loved this dress. Zendaya and the designer Tommy Hilfiger actually were not the first to present a light-up dress on this carpet.
At the Met Gala in 2016, actress Clare Danes walked onto the carpet in a stunning light-up dress by designer Zac Posen. Posen created the dress with LED lights and made it with fabric from France. The theme of this Met Gala was surrounded around technology, so utilizing the LED lights were a really smart touch. The dress utilized 30 battery packs, however, Posen was able to make the dress be very light and not uncomfortable to wear.
The dress is truly stunning. It is known as one of the most beautiful and imaginative dresses ever worn on the Met Gala red carpet. I find it fascinating how LED and other technology are being moved into fashion. Technology is being included in high fashion all of the time, even robots are being utilized as models on the red carpet. I am excited to see the evolution of technology in fashion and where technology can take fashion.
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/zac-posen-reveals-details-claire-danes-glow-dark/story?id=38867531
link to the dress: https://twitter.com/TheFashionCourt/status/727320657403482112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E727333958220976129%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2FLifestyle%2Fzac-posen-reveals-details-claire-danes-glow-dark%2Fstory%3Fid%3D38867531
I am still so in awe over this look. She looks stunning and the technology behind it is so impressive. It is something that has never been done before and has changed the game in fashion and Met Gala looks. This is something that is fascinating to me and as someone who wants to work in fashion PR, I did a lot of reading on this.
Vogue did an article on this look and wrote the inspiration for it came from Zendaya’s evolution in her career. Zendaya’s look was inspired by a similar concept done by Hussein Chalayan’s Spring 2007 collection. They used techno-infused futurism and a robotic dress that’s layers peeled back to reveal a nude model.
Vogue Runway wrote about that collection when it came out. They described the technology as LED’s light up on the dress to display a movie, a colorful pixelated grid inspired by a cityscape.
This technology emerging in the fashion industry is something I think we will continue to see. There is so much untapped potential in technology mixed into the fashion industry and I can’t wait to see what is to come.
References:
https://www.vogue.com/article/zendaya-law-roach-disney-princess-transformative-moment-met-gala-2019
https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2007-ready-to-wear/chalayan
I remember being in complete awe when I first saw her walk out in that dress. It was so interesting learning more about the inner mechanics of the allure. Something that I found pretty interesting was that the team that worked on Zendaya’s dress was the same team that worked on Hussein Chalayan 2007 transformer dress collection.
The dresses were modeled very similarly to the Cinderella dress, compared to the bear bones design. Chalayan collaborated with engineers that specialized in 2D and 3D designs to coordinate system actions to make the dress move while walking down the runways. Most of the design was composed of battery packs, micro controller, and microswitches, that would allow for the garment to change without any external command.
Given the teams history with these types of transformative dresses and software design, it is no surprise that the turned out as show-stopping as it did. I look forward to seeing how the future of fashion may progress as more designers take bigger risks with technology. I’m sure that there will be even bigger pieces to be released over the coming years seeing at how prevalent technology has become in everyday life following the COVID-19 pandemic and the statement that fashion can make with this discovery.
Source: https://courageousexpectations.wordpress.com/2015/10/25/the-dress-that-transform-hussein-chalayan/
I thought that this post was so interesting and grabbed my attention immediately. Technology and software is not my favorite thing to read about, but this post was very relatable to me and what I find interesting. I remember this Met Gala and was super impressed with Zendaya’s dress, but I did not think about the actual making of the dress.
I certainly would not think that much effort was put into this dress. All of the software, LEDs, and robotics is something that I would not have thought of. I think that the ideas and minds are so creative and I have never seen a dress like this. All the time and effort spent on the dress was all worth it because it caught millions of people’s attention and a big step in technology and fashion. Technology has advanced so much over the past years, it is so cool to see how it incorporates into fashion.
I also did not know that there was a major safety hazard of potentially catching on fire. The 4th picture literally looks like a robot costume, but that is what she wore under her dress. After this dress, I think there will be so many other dresses like this one we will see in the future and see how technology in fashion progresses as the years go on.
https://www.dezeen.com/2019/05/07/zendaya-cinderella-dress-met-gala/