Sebastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant with Bella Hadid at the Coperni spring/summer 2023 show. JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP/Getty Images French fashion brand Coperni has closed its doors after eight years. The news was announced on Wednesday on Instagram in a statement made by co-founders and creative directors Arnaud Vaillant and Sébastien Meyer. It comes after almost a year-long conflict with Coperni’s distributor and shareholder, Tomorrow Ltd., involving unpaid sums. The brand’s shuttering is a loss for the fashion world, as Vaillant and Meyer were innovators in the space, pushing technological integration and bold ideas at every turn.
Vaillant and Meyer met at Mod’Art International and launched the brand together in 2013 as Coperni Femme, with Meyer in charge of creative and Vaillant holding down the managerial and business aspects. They named the brand after astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, whose heliocentric theory was groundbreaking at the time of its introduction in 1543. “It’s the duty of our generation to try something new,” Vaillant said in 2019.
The brand immediately gained recognition, winning ANDAM’s Creative Label Prize in 2014 and becoming a finalist for the LVMH Prize a year later. Then came the opportunity to become the artistic directors of Courrèges, which Vaillant and Meyer gladly took on, putting Coperni on hold to focus on the new endeavor. After two years, though, they were done with Courrèges, and in 2018, Vaillant and Meyer relaunched Coperni. The new iteration focused on minimalist designs boasting clean lines and architectural details. Vaillant and Meyer also placed a focus on technology, often collaborating with experts in scientific fields both for inspiration and innovation. “I probably shouldn’t say this,” Meyer said. “But we find companies like Apple much more inspiring than anything happening in fashion.”
That statement explains Coperni’s Swipe Bag, designed to look like the slide-to-unlock feature on the iPhone. The accessory became a best seller for Coperni, and was iterated on continuously. In 2021, Vaillant and Meyer introduced a version produced in vegan apple leather. A year later, they collaborated with New York glass brand HEVƎN to create transparent glass Swipe bags. In 2023, they made versions made in solid gold and from a 55,000-year-old lunar meteorite, respectively.
Coperni’s most viral creation came in 2022. At the brand’s spring/summer 2023 show in Paris, Bella Hadid stepped on stage in nothing but a nude thong. Once there, men began spraying her with a white cobweb-like substance, and a dress formed on her body. After some finessing, Hadid was able to continue her walk on the runway, this time in a full garment created before the guests’ eyes. It was the 21st-century version of the moment between Shalom Harlow and the spray-painting robots at the Alexander McQueen spring/summer 1999 show. Vaillant and Meyer achieved it with help from Spanish materials-science company Fabrican.
The pair continued pushing the envelope and the next season, the Coperni runway was filled with robot dogs pulling clothing off the models as they passed. Once again, the designers were exploring the connection between technology and humanity, a relationship that has only gotten more complicated in the years since these initial presentations.
And while not a technological achievement, Coperni will also be remembered for its spring/summer 2025 show, held at Disneyland Paris in collaboration with the entertainment juggernaut. The show featured Disney x Coperni pieces—specifically a version of the Swipe Bag boasting Mickey Mouse ears on the handle—as well as an appearance by Kylie Jenner on the runway.
In February 2026, Coperni opted not to show at Paris Fashion Week, announcing that the relationship with Tomorrow Ltd. “has deteriorated significantly, to the point that Coperni no longer has the means to support its development.” In March, when Tomorrow Ltd. was sold to Progetto 11, the parent company of Italian e-commerce firm The Level Group, Vaillant and Meyer attempted to retake control of the brand to no avail. This past June, Coperni was granted secured protection from the Paris Court, and it was hoped that the buyback process of Coperni could begin. Clearly, that did not come to pass.
Kylie Jenner walking the Coperni spring/summer 2025 show at Disneyland Paris.
By losing Coperni, the fashion space just got a little less interesting. Vaillant and Meyer were pioneering as a pair, never content with the status quo of simply sending designs down the runway. “These eight years have been incredible,” Vaillant and Meyer said in a statement on Instagram . “We have been able to bring our ideas to life, meet unforgettable people, and share moments we would never have dared to imagine when we first embarked on this journey. Coperni existed because of you.” They ended the statement with the sign-off, “See you soon,” hopefully foreshadowing an eventual return of Vaillant and Meyer in some form.
Source: ShowBiz
