The French brand unveiled its latest creation on March 4 during its fall-winter 2024 fashion show, a bag whose main component is nothing but air.
Copernicus creator Arnaud Weilan and Sébastien Mayer are used to imagining pieces, each one more surprising than the last. In 2023, they created a bag made from a meteorite that fell from the Moon. This year, during the Fall-Winter 2024 show presented at Paris Fashion Week on March 4, Coperni presented the Air Swipe Bag, or a bag made of 99% air.
The remaining 1% is made of glass, which takes the form of the brand’s iconic Swipe Bag. More precisely, foam glass. not just any foam glass, though, as it’s silica aerogel, a type of gel where the liquid component is replaced by a gas, making it both solid to the touch and lickable… Like air. A bag of Copernicus actually weighs 33 grams, the weight of a tablespoon of rice.
Imaxtree:
The work was designed by Professor Ioannis Michaloudis, an expert in the fusion of art and science. Its development, in terms of research and development, took more than two months. Contrary to what its appearance and composition suggest, the bag is neither fuzzy nor soft, it’s even quite sturdy. It can withstand pressure up to 4,000 times its own weight and extreme heat up to 1,200 degrees Celsius. As the engineer says in the video of press officer Lucien Pajes, the bag is far from temporary. “It can even last longer than life.”
Copernicus, head in the stars
That Copernicus sounds like Copernicus is no accident. The 17th century astronomer who developed heliocentrism gave his name to the brand. Arnaud Weilan and Sébastien Mayer are lovers of the universe, its planets, its mysteries. The airgel used for this bag is also a nanomaterial used by NASA to capture stardust (yes, that’s it). Coperni’s Air Swipe is the largest object ever made of this space technology material. Proof that the two Frenchmen who constantly revise their Swipe Bag, sometimes in blown glass, sometimes in gold, are creators in tune with the times.
Source: Le Figaro
