As the drag queen Art Simone stood out, Saturday, on the runway of RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under with a lovely butterfly headpiece, let’s take a look back at the glam tech creations inspired by the delicate lepidoptera.

By Ludmilla Intravaia

3D printing on textiles, proximity sensors, projection mapping…, the tools of technology have found in the beauty of butterflies the ideal muse to sublimate fashion.

* Butterfly headpiece by Art Simone (2021)

On June 12, on the occasion of the broadcast of episode 7 "Talent show Extravaganza" of RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under, the Australia and New Zealand version of the famous American drag queen contest, Art Simone walked the runway, sporting a flowery heapiece, around which fluttered butterflies (images below: ©WOW).

The Australian drag queen designed herself this fashion tech accessory, the mechanical parts of which were “made from cat toys", she told Le Boudoir Numérique, two days ago. 

* Setae jacket by Julia Koerner (2019)

The Austrian designer Julia Koerner, based between Salzburg and Los Angeles, was inspired by one of the most beautiful butterflies in the world, the Madagascan sunset moth or Chrysiridia rhipheus, much appreciated for the sumptuous colors of its wings. Wings with particular characteristics, since unlike most butterflies, their colors are not pigmented but come from the diffraction of light on the scales that cover them. A phenomenon of reflection frequently studied by optical science, the science of light and vision, that made Julia Koerner want to observe more closely, by taking photos, the microstructure of the wings of this butterfly, in particular the shape of its scales (images below : ©Ger Ger for Julia Koerner).

Based on the photos, she then designed an algorithm capable of translating the play of light reflection into geometric shapes, into volumes that she printed directly on textile, to reproduce the scales of Chrysiridia rhipheus. Thus was born the Setae jacket, part of the Chro-Morpho collaborative collection from Stratasys, an American company specializing in 3D printing, keen to popularize the use of 3D printing in the fashion world. Check out the jacket, in motion, in the video below.

Julia Koerner continues to develop her ideas through Re-FREAM, a research project that invites artists and designers to collaborate with scientists to rethink the manufacturing processes of the fashion industry. Re-FREAM was launched on the initiative of the European Commission in 2020. Find out more about Julia Koerner's work, in the video below.

* Greta Oto dress by ThreeASFOUR (2019)

On the occasion of its SS20 collection, entitled Human Plant, the trio of artists from ThreeASFOUR, a New York brand well known for fusing technology and traditional know-how, aroused interest by using 3D printing, in a unique way, by printing photopolymers directly on the fabric of the Greta Oto dress, named after this butterfly with transparent wings (more info here).

Butterfly dress by Tuba and Ezra Çetin (2016)

Fruit of the collaboration between the two Turkish designers Tuba and Ezra Çetin with an engineer from Intel, the Butterfly dress was presented on April 13, 2016, in Paris, during a press conference organized by the microprocessors manufacturer. When the Intel proximity sensors on the garment are activated, forty butterflies fly away from the dress (more info here).

* Projection mapping dress by Franck Sorbier (2012)

As a tribute to the Color of the Weather dress from the movie Donkey Skin by Jacques Demy (more info here), the French couturier Franck Sorbier has teamed up with Intel to create a dress using the multimedia projection mapping technology consisting in projecting light or videos on volumes. Various moving patterns were projected onto a white crinoline dress, including a butterfly flight, to be seen in the video below.

In the video below, Franck Sorbier says more about the marriage of his haute couture and Intel technology, on the occasion of the presentation of his Fall/Winter 2012-2013 collection, at Antoine Theater, on July 4, 2012, in Paris.

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* Continue reading with these Boudoir Numérique papers :  

- NYFW SS20: ThreeASFOUR prints butterfly wings on dresses

- Old school fashion tech : Catherine Deneuve’s colour of the weather dress in the movie Donkey Skin