Couture LED Dress Lights up the Met Gala

At last night’s MET gala, an annual celebration of fashion (and celebrity) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a couture LED dress stole the show.

Designed by Zac Posen and worn by Claire Danes, this hand sewn creation was made from a fiber optic woven organza sourced from France. 30 mini battery packs were sewn into the understructure of the dress in order to power its illuminating effect in the dark. You can watch it dazzle here.

The theme of this year’s Met Gala was ‘Manus x Machina: Fashion in the Age of Technology’ and this design was most certainly on point. Posen’s aim in response to the theme was in his words to create a gown that highlights ‘the place where technology and fantasy meet.’

The princess-style dress required 600 hours of work from Posen and his six-person team. ‘I went through a sequence of stages throughout the process of draping this gown, playing with motion and structure to capture the emotional engineering,’ Posen said in a statement. ‘The gown is hollow underneath with no tulle – holding its own structure.’

The hard work certainly paid off as the design has gone viral on Posen’s instagram account as well as on social media. ‘It’s always great when something resonates and creates a visceral reaction,’ says Posen.

As a designer, Zac Posen is known for incorporating high-tech elements into fashion and has worked with Google’s Made with Code program.