"There’s a scientific theory that some of earth’s earliest life-forms emerged from within tiny bubbles known as vesicles—protective compartments for prebiological molecules. The bubble theory proposes that within these tiny expanses, universes independently formed with their own cosmological rhythms and dimensions. “The body is central in the exhibition, and what fascinates me about our body the most is not the outside but that the atomic anatomy of our bodies is all empty space—99.9% of it is empty space,” van Herpen tells Vogue. “When you think about that, it is so surreal. In this design, I wanted to reflect the realism and the surrealism at the same time.” From these ideas, the designer and artists began to create Gu’s Airo dress. The gown features 15,000 hand-formed, individually bonded, iridescent glass bubbles. Hidden beneath its light and airy silhouette is a complex system of microprocessors, bubble nozzles, air pumps, and a portable power system that releases pressurized gas and bubbles timed by an algorithmically engineered code. What did that mean on the 2026 Met Gala red carpet? Two to five actual bubbles were released per second as Gu walked across the carpet, creating a dreamy, whimsical walking tableau. “It speaks deeply to me through themes of motion and stillness,” Gu says, “being in the air, when time slows down, and the nature of reality—breaking boundaries of what is traditionally possible, whether it be creating a dress that ontologically inverts a bubble as both an ephemeral and intangible entity or redefining what modern womanhood can look like in the realm of a traditionally male-dominated extreme sport.” Considering the theme, van Herpen wanted to offer up an alternative view on the human form: “I didn’t want to express our body from the way we normally perceive it—its beauty, its outside. I wanted the dress to inspire people to look at the body from a different perspective, a scientific one also.” It took the teams working across couture, science, engineering, and computational design 15 weeks of development and 2,550 hours of work to execute the design. Van Herpen says this has been one of the most challenging looks that she and the atelier have ever made. “It looks so seamless and effortless, but inside is an impressive construction. This look required a very diverse team of specialists.” A trained ballerina herself, the designer had Gu’s sometimes gravity-defying physical feats in mind as well. “The dress expresses the weightlessness of Eileen [and] her athletic skills,” van Herpen says. “It takes her up into the air, and it embodies her airborne grace on the slopes.” ... “Beyond being a true masterpiece in fashion, design, and materials innovation, this dress celebrates the arts of motion, nature, and the body,” Gu continues. “For me, as a freeski athlete, these elements are inextricable from one another, and so this dress is the purest distillation of my art.” “I love the way that it speaks to motion and time. As an athlete, I’m constantly in motion, so things that feel so quick can suddenly freeze. When I’m in the air, it’s as if time slows down. The two properties that define bubbles are being ephemeral. Yet, I’m covered in bubbles that are frozen in time and on the body. So it’s really questioning the nature of reality, the nature of movement.” (x)(x)
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