Cookie banner

This site uses cookies. Select "Block all non-essential cookies" to only allow cookies necessary to display content and enable core site features. Select "Accept all cookies" to also personalize your experience on the site with ads and partner content tailored to your interests, and to allow us to measure the effectiveness of our service.

To learn more, review our Cookie Policy, Privacy Notice and Terms of Use.

or
clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Marchesa Created a Cognitive Dress With IBM Technology for This Year’s Met Gala

Getty Images: Desiree Navaro

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

There's plenty to look forward to at this year's Manus x Machina-themed Met Gala — celebs, robots, robotic celebs — but nothing quite as interesting as the Marchesa dress IBM's cognitive computer system created.

Yes, you heard right — robot-designed couture. Marchesa designers Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig teamed up with IBM's Watson, a cognitive system the tech corporation created that uses language processing to analyze data and answer questions. It basically learns as it goes.

The finished product will be known as the Cognitive Dress, and you'll see it in all of it's tech-y glory on this year's Met Gala red carpet. It's wearer won't be revealed until then, but IBM did give WWD some insight into how it was made.

Marchesa provided Watson with hundreds of images of their past designs, and it used Color Theory to choose the dress's hue. Choosing the right fabric required a few more steps (seven in total).

And what's a "smart dress" without LED lights? The ones on the Cognitive Dress will change colors in response to online conversations surrounding the Met Gala.

We still have no idea who will wear it (a Jenner or Hadid, perhaps?), but keep an eye out for it on this year's Met Gala red carpet on May 2. We have a feeling it'll be out of this world.