Marchesa and IBM Team for Dress at Met Gala 2016

The Cognitive Dress from designer Marchesa. The dress changes colors based on fan sentiment. Worn by Karolina Kurkova at the Met Gala 2016.

Last night’s Met Gala drew a variety of beautiful creations from fashion’s top designers to the red carpet, but one had a truly unique technical twist that was appropriate for the current exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum.  The current exhibit at the museum is   Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, so it was appropriate that model Karolina Kurkova turned up in a stunning gown that was a technical innovation, as well as a fashion innovation.  Ms. Kurkova wore a “cognitive dress” a dress designed to light up to reflect social media sentiment.  The dress was designed by Marchesa in partnership with IBM.   According to an article in Ad Age, ” the dress, which has LED lights embedded in it, will change colors in real time based on emotions as the public conversations around the Met Gala unfold on Twitter.” Although the technology and the color coding is impressive, we just love the style of the dress and it’s gorgeous train with the cascading white flowers.