Jenna Ortega is in her robot era. While New York City promoting her forthcoming dystopian science-fiction film, Klara and the Sun, the actor spotlighted a designer whose work truly feels like a feat of engineering.
A master of corsetry and mimicking fluidity in the traditionally rigid art form, Elias Matso is perhaps best known for his collaborative work with Christian Cowan—which has included a series of sculptural wet-look dresses with twisted, pin-tucked bodices, as seen on the likes of Sydney Sweeney, Sarah Paulson, Lizzo, Tyla, Cardi B, and more. But for this look, he pushed his limits further, capturing the body’s motion while using rigid materials.
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Ortega’s corseted gown was crafted mainly from steel, with a base of cotton coutil and viscose jersey fabrics adorned with hand-cut steel spiral boning, hand-painted flat steel boning, and thousands of crystal beads mounted on steel galvanized wire (6,500, to be precise). The result was a piece that played with contradictions—at once fluid and sharp, playful and industrial.
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“Something I love about fashion is that there doesn’t have to be a precedent. We have the free will to develop whatever insanely complicated, possibly counterintuitive techniques we want,” the Polimoda graduate shared back in August when revealing the look. “This dress was a massive test of my free will and just how much I was willing to put towards something that did not have a guaranteed return. It was scary, I felt crazy at times, I lost a lot of money and now this object exists. After many blisters, rebuilds, failed trials, international shipping nightmares, and working on it in 6 different cities with so many helping hands it just exists, and that is wild.”
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Ortega wore the piece with her hair down and some nude Louboutin heels.
Klara and the Sun, in which she plays an “Artificial Friend,” is out on October 23.
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