The fashion world has long been fascinated with the natural world, but the love affair poses one major challenge: how to create the (convincing) illusion of wetness.
In preparation for her head-turning appearance at the 2019 Met Gala, Kim Kardashian met with the fashion designer Thierry Mugler to conceptualize her look. “Who are you, actually?” the designer asked her, according to Mr. Mugler’s manager at the time. “How would you define yourself?” Paper And Other Substrates Printing
When she responded, “I’m just a California girl,” Mr. Mugler decided he was going to make her just that, the manager, Jean-Baptiste Rougeot, recalled.
“He said: ‘Yes, this is it! She is going to be directly out of the ocean, out of Malibu, directly onto the red carpet in New York,’” Mr. Rougeot said.
Inspired by Sophia Loren’s turn as a Greek sponge diver in the 1957 film “Boy on a Dolphin,” which features a scene in which the actress emerges from the waters of the Aegean, a sopping-wet shirt dress clinging to her chest like a second skin, Mr. Mugler, who died in 2022, wanted to use “wetness” to celebrate Ms. Kardashian’s curvaceous figure.
“The idea of the dress was really it has to look very simple, dangerous and just with a nip around the waist,” Mr. Rougeot said, “but completely dripping.”
Trompe l’oeil effects have long been a mainstay of fashion, like Elsa Schiaparelli’s bow-that-wasn’t-a-bow sweater in the 1920s and the false fingers and toes that reliably appear in her house’s more recent runway presentations. Designers often turn to the natural world for inspiration, mimicking organic matter with the more traditional materials of the fashion world (or the reverse: Karl Lagerfeld memorably made sequins out of wood for Chanel).
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