Jodie Turner-Smith’s Dress Is Covered in Electronic Waste
Jodie Turner-Smith is rewiring the art of method dressing. Clad in a futuristic Schiaparelli gown crafted from repurposed tech, she transformed the red carpet last night into a scene straight out of her latest sci-fi saga. Call her mother(board).
Turner-Smith stepped out in Paris to the Tron: Ares premiere in a bespoke look from Schiaparelli’s spring 2024 couture collection. Dubbed the “motherboard” dress, the piece is comprised of salvaged electronic relics predating 2007—a Blackberry curve, tons of USBs and chipsets, a CPU cooler, and a clunky Citizen calculator placed at the hip. Infused between the digital artifacts were classic Schiaparelli design details. A panel of reflective silver fabric lined half of the dress, while an electronic waste clutch with Schiaparelli’s signature key-hole motif added to the sci-fi feel.
The result, according to the brand’s designer, Daniel Roseberry, fused “old world techniques and new world technologies” to create an outfit “part human, part something else, [and] totally Schiaparelli.”
Turner-Smith’s motherboard dress was just one of a handful of viral moments from Schiaparelli’s spring 2024 couture presentation. Inspired by Alien heroine Ellen Ripley, Roseberry sent model Maggie Maurer down the runway with what became known as the “alien baby”—an infant-sized doll decked out in Swarovski crystals and piles of electronic chips.
When the “motherboard” dress came down the catwalk, it was met with applause from fashion critics, but surely some must have thought, “Where, exactly, would one wear this?” Not only is the design couture, but its elaborate fabrication also doesn’t really lend to activities like sitting down or dancing.
But for Turner-Smith, who plays Athena, Ares’s second-in-command, in the Tron, the ensemble was the perfect interface between high fashion and high tech. In fact, she even ventured out into Paris afterwards wearing the dress. According to one X user, she was seen wearing the couture dress out at a bar.
