Tag Archives: bubbles

This 2,550-Hour Dress Blew Real Bubbles at the Met Gala

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The Met Gala is probably the most popular and glamorous fashion event in the Western world. Whichever way you feel about the organizers and having such a lavish event in these times, you can’t deny that it is very much talked about, especially on social media, due to the personalities who attend and, of course, what they’re wearing.

This event is also a chance for designers to showcase their more experimental works. One of the most eye-catching and interesting dresses we saw this year is the Airo dress, worn by Olympic freestyle skier and model Eileen Gu and designed by Iris van Herpen in collaboration with artist duo A.A. Murakami. The dress features 15,000 iridescent glass bubbles and, believe it or not, it actually released real floating bubbles live on the red carpet.

Designer: Iris van Herpen

The dress’s silhouette is sculptural and mini in length, giving off a cloud-like, ethereal effect that instantly captured eyes on the red carpet. Van Herpen described the bubbles as a reflection of human anatomy, “which is composed of 99.9% empty space,” and the piece is also a nod to her ongoing fascination with biotech couture. Olympic triple medalist Eileen Gu is a wonderfully fitting muse, as the concept philosophically mirrors the kind of weightless, almost gravity-defying precision her sport demands on the snow slopes.

This is not just a simple dress adorned with bubbles. Each of the 15,000 iridescent glass bubbles was hand-moulded and then attached to the bodice using UV light, a meticulous process that required 2,550 hours of work across 15 weeks, carried out by a dedicated team of specialists in couture, science, and computational design. Underneath the skirt, hidden microprocessors pressurized gas and released real, floating bubbles in timed sequences. Everything you saw on that red carpet was completely real, with no filters and no CGI. It was a pure, breathtaking collaboration between fashion, art, and science.

What truly elevates the Airo dress from couture to living art is the partnership with A.A. Murakami. Alexander Groves and Azusa Murakami, who work between London and Japan, are celebrated for transforming ephemeral materials like steam, light, and air into immersive living installations. Their renowned “Floating World” exhibition is a perfect example of how they blur the line between the tangible and the invisible. Remarkably, the Airo dress marks the very first time they have applied their artistic philosophy to a wearable garment, and the result is nothing short of extraordinary.

What makes this piece particularly compelling is the question it poses while you’re simply looking at it: where does the body end and the space around it begin? The cloud of iridescent glass and the soft stream of real bubbles dissolving into the air around Eileen Gu created something genuinely hypnotic. It wasn’t just a dress being worn; it was a statement unfolding in real time. The silhouette seemed to blur the lines of her athletic frame, giving her an almost otherworldly quality that no CGI could ever replicate.

Van Herpen is no stranger to this kind of boundary-pushing. Her previous viral creation was a luminous dress made of living algae, crafted in collaboration with a bio-engineer and biophysicists from the University of Amsterdam. With every headline-making piece, she continues to challenge what fashion can be, not just as clothing, but as a vehicle for scientific exploration, philosophy, and wonder.

And perhaps that’s the most exciting thing about the Airo dress. In a sea of beautiful gowns at the Met Gala, this one made people stop and ask questions about science, about art, about the human body, and about what fashion is even for. At a time when so much of what we see has been filtered, edited, or AI-generated, there’s something incredibly refreshing about a dress that creates its own quiet spectacle from the inside out. Real bubbles. Real craft. Real wonder. That’s the kind of fashion that stays with you long after the cameras have gone.

The post This 2,550-Hour Dress Blew Real Bubbles at the Met Gala first appeared on Yanko Design.

Bubble-inspired pendant lamp can hang horizontally or vertically as desired

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Lamps these days come in all shapes and sizes, especially ones that are designed to elicit certain positive responses through their aesthetic. That said, most of these lamps are also designed to be used in a single manner only, especially if they’re mounted on walls or hung from ceilings. That’s why it’s interesting to come across lamp designs that offer a bit more flexibility, even if it’s just in the way they’re made to hang from ceilings. This concept, for example, tries to add a bit of whimsical fun to a room’s atmosphere by calling to mind the ethereal beauty and joy that floating bubbles bring to the air.

Designer: Begüm Kılınç

There are lamps that try to literally imitate the appearance of bubbles, and while they might be things of beauty, these chandeliers aren’t always the most practical lighting solutions. Just as bubbles convey characteristics of fragility, this kind of lamp is, more often than not, used for more delicate and posh settings. They are beautiful, yes, but they also don’t bring the kind of flexibility and fun that this lamp concept proposes.

The Bubbles pendant lamp design looks more like a toy than a luxurious crystal-clear chandelier. Bubbles, after all, tend to bring out the inner child of anyone who sees or plays around with them. The pastel colors represent some of the hues reflected off the surfaces of bubbles, though toned down a bit to be a bit more discreet with some interior designs. The cylindrical body and rounded ends are akin to bubbles that, despite normally spherical, would sometimes join with other bubbles to form a longer mass.

And just like how bubbles can float vertically or horizontally depending on how the wind blows, these lamps can hang either way as well. When it is held up by two cords, it can hang horizontally as you would expect from such a long lamp. However, it can also hang from a single cord to hang vertically, giving it a more striking presence, especially if the lamp is now at eye level. Interestingly, the clear ends of the lamp have spherical “stoppers” that let you adjust how those cords behave.

Such a simple difference can have a profound effect on the ambiance of a room. Imagine multiple Bubble lamps hanging vertically, creating an almost magical atmosphere with their collective lighting. It’s definitely not a ground-breaking feature, and there might be practical and safety issues with such a design. It’s still an interesting experiment that tries to take inspiration from the ordinary things in life that bring us joy and translate that into a product design that does the same.

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Bubbles chandeliers create an atmosphere of playful wonder in any space

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As kids, we would often find joy and fun in some of the simplest things. Bubbles, for example, would send children into a fit of giggles as they try to chase and maybe pop these ephemeral spheres. As such, bubbles and similar shapes have always been used to portray such a childlike sense of wonder and bliss, employed in media, art installations, and even interior designs. The gentle yet mesmerizing play of light on a bubble’s reflective surface, however, is a seemingly perfect metaphor for artistic lighting. And that is exactly what this collection of hanging lights tries to offer, bringing the innocence and beauty of childhood memories to elevate the mood in any room or space.

Designer: Brand van Egmond

It’s both a tragedy as well as a deep message that some of the most beautiful things in nature are short-lived, from rainbows to butterflies to bubbles. Whether occurring naturally or made through soapy machinations, bubbles have always delighted the eyes and hearts of all ages. Recreating those blissful feelings indoors has become the mission of many bubble-inspired designs that mostly hang from the ceiling. But if you’ll be dangling something from that height, why not turn it into a chandelier or pendant lamp as well?

That’s precisely what the Bubbles lighting collection brings to the table, or rather to your room. As if floating in the air, the chandeliers and hanging lamps attach orbs of varying sizes to a metal frame of twisting and bending rods that give the fixture a more natural form, almost like branches of a tree. Even with this design alone, the piece of structural art is already ornamental and eye-catching, adding accents that will undoubtedly be a conversation starter for your visitors.

Once the lights are turned on, however, the entire space transforms into an almost magical atmosphere. The lamps cast a warm glow on the area, and the lights bounce against each other, creating a symphony of reflections that truly mesmerize the eyes. Not all the spheres contain lighting elements, so there is a bit of variation and randomness in each group. After all, not all bubbles are created equal even in real life.

The Bubbles collection also comes in different forms, with Swirl offering a more compact arrangement that you can use in smaller spaces or as a group. Flow, as the name implies, takes a longer horizontal form, as if the bubbles were flowing across the air. Whether used in a living room, above a dining space, or as mood lighting for restaurants, these bubble-inspired hanging lights will make you daydream and long for those happy, innocent moments of childhood when every little thing inspired awe, wonder, and joy.

The post Bubbles chandeliers create an atmosphere of playful wonder in any space first appeared on Yanko Design.