Introducing Coperni: The French Fashion House Leveraging The Power of Tech To Create Chic Clothing For The Future
“The idea behind Coperni is to mix this notion of chicness, of our French DNA, and blend it with something more futuristic”
The name of the brand says it all – Coperni. It’s an abbreviation of the last name of the renowned Renaissance polymath and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. A man who created a scientific revolution when he came up with the mathematical formula that proved that the Sun, and not the Earth, was at the centre of the universe. For the founders of Coperni, creative director Sébastien Meyer, and CEO Arnaud Vaillant, that sort of paradigm-shifting thinking is at the heart of everything they do.
“The idea behind Coperni is to mix this notion of chicness, of our French DNA, and blend it with something more futuristic. We have always been passionate about innovation, exploring the digital space and futurism,” explained Arnaud exclusively to Harper’s Bazaar Arabia from his headquarters in Paris as he prepared his upcoming show.
The duo met in 2009 when they were studying at the Mod’Art International school in Paris. Theirs is a symbiotic relationship where Sébastien dreams up the almost impossible and Arnaud steps in to help him make those visions a reality. And right from the beginning, the brand got noticed by key players in the industry. Coperni’s earliest collections were snapped up by Opening Ceremony, then the label won the prestigious First Collection ANDAM Prize in 2014 and it was a finalist for the LVMH Prize in 2015. But Sébastien and Arnaud ended up having to withdraw Coperni from the competition when they landed the roles of co-artistic directors for the famed French fashion house Courrèges.
While at Courrèges the pair put Coperni on hold and focused on giving the august house, known for its space-age, futuristic slate on fashion, a sleek new design direction that incorporated a fresh, interactive storytelling approach. Quickly, however, the duo realised their vision of the future of fashion was calling them back to their own brand. “It was an amazing experience and it was a childhood dream coming true. But it is special to work for a house with such a strong heritage and sometimes that means you are not that free, and Sébastien and I wanted to get that freedom back.”
The rebirth of Coperni in 2019 was something of a fashion youthquake. Its futuristic modern designs were launched not with a fashion show, but on the Coperni Instagram account, a noteworthy move at the time. Then Coperni layered on an online interactive component by creating another Instagram account called @copernize_your_life where followers could navigate a sort of Choose Your Own Adventure social-media storyline depending on which answer they gave to a question posed to them on the feed. A move that made the passive act of scrolling Instagram into a participator event that put Coperni’s followers in the driver’s seat.
Their next collection was presented inside the Apple store on the Champs-Élysées and the duo began to make even more literal connections to the modern age with Sébastien using Apple icons and functions as starting points for the brand’s different bag shapes. There is the Wifi bag, with its fan-like shape echoing the one we all hunt for on our phones, and the already iconic Swipe bag which is an interpretation of the flight mode button on the iPhone. The latest addition is called The Lock, a boxy bag that, you guessed it, mimics the look of the smartphone icon. “Sébastian is fascinated by the times we live in and his main inspiration is the tech world. His god is Steve Jobs, not Madame Grès,” Arnaud told us with a laugh.
But it’s not just modern design elements that inspired Coperni’s offering. Advancements in fabric technology are also woven into its pieces. For the SS21 collection – which took place on the cusp of the world going into a global lockdown and was shown outside on the top of Paris’ tallest building, the Montparnasse Tower – customers were proposed garments in antibacterial fabrics or ones that would protect them from UV rays. There were wool suits that featured QR codes that could be scanned to learn about the entire supply-chain journey of the outfit and apple leather was also incorporated into ensembles.
“What I am sure about is that we are a new generation and it is our duty to take care of the planet. We need to all be working in more sustainable ways and the new generation of customers are very sensitive to this subject,” said Arnaud.
Taking the tech message of that show one step further and giving a nod to both the show’s location and the social-distancing world at that time, the duo used a brand new tech that blends Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) – which goes by the name of Extended Reality (XR) – to create the collection’s advertisement campaign and video. It basically combined real-world models with virtual environments that were filmed together IRL.
And while everyone else was taking a beat to step back and reflect during the pandemic, Sébastien and Arnaud doubled down on their creative efforts. When the rest of fashion was turning to digital shows, the duo decided to create a live fashion show appropriate for the COVID age. Their AW21 show became a drive-in happening where Coperni used the high beams of all the cars’ headlights to illuminate the catwalk as the models in short skirts, plunging necklines, and statement coats stalked by. They even created a pirate radio station that all of the drivers tuned into at the same time so that the PCR-tested guests could listen to the show’s soundtrack simultaneously from inside the comfort of their individual automobiles. “We do believe a lot in technology and progress. But we still want to always stay connected to the humanity of fashion,” stated Arnaud.
It was a show that went viral not just because of the sexy, take-no-prisoners minimalistic clothing but the immersive way the brand was able to make the audience, both those in attendance and those watching online, feel a part of something modern, something unexpected and something new. And isn’t that what the future of fashion should be all about?
Coperni is distributed at Colette, Le Bon Marché, the Webster, Opening Ceremony (NY, LA and London) and www.thecorner.com, amongst other retail outlets.
Coperni Founders Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant will be in conversation with Jessica Michault at World of Fashion 2021 on Tuesday, October 12 at 19:30.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s October 2021 issue