Scandi-cool meets Irish country in this period Cork apartment
Scandi-cool meets Irish country in this period Cork apartment

Orla Neligan

Interior designer Sorcha Harman shares her tips for sourcing and styling vintage pieces
Interior designer Sorcha Harman shares her tips for sourcing and styling vintage pieces

Megan Burns

My Career: Festival director Anna Lardi
My Career: Festival director Anna Lardi

Sarah Finnan

My life in fashion: Five minutes with Beo Wellness founder Aoibhín Garrihy
My life in fashion: Five minutes with Beo Wellness founder Aoibhín Garrihy

Aoibhin Garrihy

This Kenmare home combines the charm of cottage-inspired details with a connection to the outdoors
This Kenmare home combines the charm of cottage-inspired details with a connection to the outdoors

Megan Burns

How to stop getting in your own way
How to stop getting in your own way

Niamh Ennis

The definitive guide to menopause signs, symptoms and solutions
The definitive guide to menopause signs, symptoms and solutions

IMAGE

This innovative Monkstown red brick is on the market for €750,000
This innovative Monkstown red brick is on the market for €750,000

IMAGE

This Dublin house from Home of the Year has a relaxed, bohemian style
This Dublin house from Home of the Year has a relaxed, bohemian style

Megan Burns

Support the Irish artists cancelling their SXSW shows by shopping their merch
Support the Irish artists cancelling their SXSW shows by shopping their merch

Sarah Gill

Image / Style / Fashion

You will not believe how they made THAT Zendaya Balmain dress


By Lauren Heskin
10th Sep 2021

@gienah.robert on Instagram

You will not believe how they made THAT Zendaya Balmain dress

The leather Balmain dress the actress wore at the Venice Film Festival last month was certainly not off the rack. In fact, they had to build an exact mannequin of Zendaya’s torso to make it.

Promoting her latest flick Dune, already tipped to be a hot Oscar contender after an eight-minute standing ovation at its premiere in Venice last month, Zendaya stepped out in an exquisitely draped leather dress by Olivier Rousteing of French fashion house Balmain. The wet-look draping gave it a Grecian goddess appearance while the textured caramel leather gave it an edge and made it easily the most iconic look of this year’s Venice Film Festival. 

And if you’re wondering whether it was, in fact, wet because of the way it clung to her body and fit her better than any glove ever… Well, that would have been easier than how they actually made it.

Via Robert Mercier / @gienah.robert on Instagram

French leather artist Robert Mercier revealed the intricate process on his Instagram account this week, working with both Rousteing and Zendaya to create the one-off piece. It required a three-dimensional mould of Zendaya’s entire torso, from her shoulders down to her hips, that was then made into a glossy mannequin. Mercier then shaped the calfskin and lambskin to fit her body precisely.

Via Robert Mercier / @gienah.robert on Instagram

Creating small folds across the torso to look like draping silk, the piece looks as though it just lightly caresses Zendaya. It’s evocative of the incredible marble sculpture, “The Veiled Vesta” by Rafaelle Monti, which you may recognise from Darcy’s sculpture room in Jo Wright’s Pride and Prejudice. It’s a solidity of marble and leather made air that is so impressive, to give those heavy materials a sense of weightlessness.

Made not just specifically for Zendaya but for the Dune premiere as well, the coffee-colour leather was chosen to emulate the sandy plains of the geopolitical sci-fi film. As Mercier calls Zendaya, “a true goddess of the desert!”

Granted, it’s not particularly environmentally friendly to create a leather dress that will only ever fit one person in one moment in time (even in just one position – I’m not sure it would be easy to sit down in!). 

Via Robert Mercier / @gienah.robert on Instagram

But it’s also a magnificent piece of art. Using artists of incredible skill and putting them on the world stage, it’s how high fashion ought to be done. Slowly, with precision and expertise. It’s always a pleasure to see something done well, even if you can’t fathom its complexities. From great musicians to beautiful pieces of art and moving works of prose, this dress will do down in the fashion pantheon as one of the greats.