It's the final day of Paris Fashion Week 2025 and Coperni has selected the most magical place on earth as its runway. But it’s not just the Disneyland castle at night that’s creating a sense of wonder – there’s also a bag, a simple blue tote brought to life by a technology that looks much like magic itself.
The Parisian fashion brand has never been afraid to experiment with the unconventional: from its liquid spray on dress worn by supermodel Bella Hadid to its use of NASA-approved silica Aerogel to construct a bag made of air. So it was only fitting that the founders of a 3D printing technology out of MIT’s Self Assembly Lab, known for its explorations into programmable material technologies, should get a call.
“We were very honoured that we were chosen as one of the technologies Coperni wanted to highlight,” says Schendy Kernizan, CEO and Co-founder of Rapid Liquid Print (RLP), the MIT-founded start-up that developed the technology used to bring this Coperni-Disney project to life.
The process – Gravity Free Manufacturing – was spun out of the lab in 2020 by Kernizan and co-founders Skylar Tibbits, Bjorn Sparrman, and Jared Laucks.
“When we first started RLP, we focused on overcoming the existing limitations of 3D printing,” Kernizan told TCT of RLP’s origins. “We looked at the fact that everything is limited by gravity.”
RLP prints in a reusable gel matrix, eliminating the effects of gravity to build soft elastomer products in minutes. This method enables non-planar printing, using industry standard materials such as silicone ranging from Shore 00-50 to Shore 50A, and is also said to work with rubbers and foams, offering multiple hardness and colour options for complex, large-scale designs.
“Within the additive manufacturing world, you'll hear a lot about how the material property is not competitive with traditional manufacturing, which forced us to think a little bit differently early on in development,” Kernizan said of RLP’s approach to 3D printing, which unlike traditional manufacturing processes like injection moulding, is said to be sustainable, reusable, and adaptable. “Our gel acts as the mould and it can be reused countless times, significantly reducing waste. Each design change happens digitally, free of traditional repetitive and wasteful physical moulds.”
Rapid Liquid Print
The bag, named the Ariel Swipe after Disney’s The Little Mermaid, adopts Coperni’s signature egg-shaped silhouette. Across a short six-week transatlantic collaboration, the teams performed an iterative design process, sharing test prints – particularly around the aesthetic of the opening of the bag – before culminating with the production of three final bags, each printed in just four hours.
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“There were definitely tweaks along the way,” Kernizan said of the development process. “Our process is unique, and designers can benefit from early discussions on the technology’s unlimited capabilities and possibilities. This collaboration was a great example of that learning process.”
The Coperni bag is not a prototype. When the sky-blue object emerges from the gel, with no support structures to speak of, it’s practically ready to be marched down a runway.
“You simply pull it out, rinse it, and let it dry. There’s no need for additional post-processing or curing—the gel takes care of all of that during the printing,” Kernizan confirmed.
RLP has the ability to print down to 0.5mm resolution and up to 1 x 1 x 0.5 metres in build volume. It’s already being applied in industries like healthcare and automotive for the manufacture of end-use products from prosthetics to gaskets.
“The beauty of this process is that it can scale infinitely. You could reconfigure the system to print something as large as a pool,” Kernizan said. “After this show, we’re excited about future opportunities where we can showcase the unique capabilities of RLP in even more creative ways.”
RLP operates primarily as a service from its Boston facility, but the plan is to bring the technology to factory floors, with two machines already sold to early adopters within the medical industry, and broader commercialisation plans expected in 2025.
“We're not just making prototypes” Kernizan added. “Our vision is to empower industries with RLP machines that drive innovation and production efficiency. This is about creating real products that will shape the future.”
This article originally appeared inside TCT Europe Edition Vol. 32 Issue 6. Subscribe here to receive your FREE print copy of TCT Magazine, delivered to your door six times a year.
