The viral-friendly brand has incorporated biotech fabrics into its new collection to deliver skincare benefits straight to your skin
Coperni loves a viral moment. From Bella Hadid’s SS23 spray-on dress to the Boston Dynamics mechanical hounds which undressed Rianne Van Rompaey on-stage and snatched Lila Moss’ handbag from her arm. But now the fashion brand is taking on a whole new meaning of the word with its latest innovation: bacteria-infused clothing.
For SS26, Coperni is launching the C+ line; a collection of leggings, bodysuits and tops created with the aim of delivering active skincare to your body while you wear the pieces. Working with HeiQ, a Swiss pioneer in textile biotechnology, Coperni developed a 4-way stretch fabric that embeds a patented synbiotic blend of probiotics and prebiotics within a slow-release biobased matrix.
Each gram of fabric contains up to 140 000 CFU/g of live (friendly) bacteria. When the fabric comes in contact with skin, your body heat and friction activates a gradual transfer of these bacteria to the skin’s surface, which the brand claims helps rebalance the microbiome, reinforce the natural barrier, and support self-repair mechanisms.
The idea for the collection, which Coperni is calling “careware”, came when founders Arnaud Vaillant and Sébastien Meyer asked themselves: what if a garment could do more than dress you, what if it could care for you? “There’s a shared desire to take better care of ourselves, to improve our lifestyle, and to bring more comfort and well-being into our daily lives,” they tell Dazed. “We often forget that the skin is a living organ, a delicate ecosystem. We wanted to imagine clothing that could become an ally, a second skin infused with kindness and intelligence.”
The project was years in the making, with the Coperni team working with Dr Robin Temmerman at HeiQ Life Sciences to create the patented blend of pre- and probiotics encapsulated in the fabric. Vaillant and Meyer say that the challenge was both scientific but also creative – ensuring that the technology could live inside the garment without sacrificing the feel or aesthetics. The formula was then dermatologically tested on human skin to be proven safe. The brand says that the active ingredients last at their full efficiency for 40 washes, after which the intensity may reduce but “the effects remain visible and continue to deliver performance over time”.
Skincare-infused clothing has been on the rise, with everyone from Kim Kardashian (Skims’ “collagen yarn” face wrap) to David Gandy (Wellwear Care’s aloe vera infused athleisure wear) getting in on the action. For Coperni, the C+ collection is part of a new chapter about what fashion can be: not only a tool of expression, but also of regeneration.
“For so long, fashion has focused on what’s visible, the shape, the colour, the silhouette. Now, we’re entering a time where what’s invisible matters just as much: how it interacts with your body, how it supports your well-being,” Vaillant and Meyer say. “Skincare clothing isn’t just a trend, it’s part of a broader movement toward conscious innovation. In the future, we believe garments will be more than just style, they’ll be companions in wellness, extensions of self-care, and reflections of a more thoughtful way of living.”
Coperni's C+ line is available to pre-order from today here.