In preparation for her head-turning appearance at the 2019 Met Gala, Kim Kardashian met with the fashion designer Thierry Mugler to conceptualize her look. \u201cWho are you, actually?\u201d the designer asked her, according to Mr. Mugler\u2019s manager at the time. \u201cHow would you define yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n
When she responded, \u201cI\u2019m just a California girl,\u201d Mr. Mugler decided he was going to make her just that, the manager, Jean-Baptiste Rougeot, recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said: \u2018Yes, this is it! She is going to be directly out of the ocean, out of Malibu, directly onto the red carpet in New York,\u2019\u201d Mr. Rougeot said.<\/p>\n
Inspired by Sophia Loren\u2019s turn as a Greek sponge diver in the 1957 film \u201cBoy on a Dolphin,\u201d which features a scene in which the actress emerges from the waters of the Aegean, a sopping-wet shirt dress clinging to her chest like a second skin, Mr. Mugler, who died in 2022, wanted to use \u201cwetness\u201d to celebrate Ms. Kardashian\u2019s curvaceous figure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea of the dress was really it has to look very simple, dangerous and just with a nip around the waist,\u201d Mr. Rougeot said, \u201cbut completely dripping.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trompe l\u2019oeil effects have long been a mainstay of fashion, like Elsa Schiaparelli\u2019s bow-that-wasn\u2019t-a-bow sweater in the 1920s and the false fingers and toes that reliably appear in her house\u2019s more recent runway presentations. Designers often turn to the natural world for inspiration, mimicking organic matter with the more traditional materials of the fashion world (or the reverse: Karl Lagerfeld memorably made sequins out of wood for Chanel).<\/p>\n
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, water itself \u2014 the one constant of life as we know it \u2014 has been a durable favorite of fashion designers. By studying water droplets, they have developed different techniques to craft the illusion that their garments are soaked in, splashed with or simply accented by water. The effect has no shortage of fans, attracting attention in luxury as well as more-affordable fashion. After all, water can never go fully out of style.<\/p>\n
For Ms. Kardashian, the drenched effect was achieved in several steps. First, to make the body of the dress look wet, silk organza \u2014 a fabric that wrinkles naturally \u2014 was layered over liquid silicone. Some 100,000 translucent sequins in three nude shades were then embroidered to accentuate the shadows that would be present in a genuinely wet dress.<\/p>\n
Finally, to create the illusion of having just emerged from water, Mr. Rougeot visited a vintage store in Paris to scout for crystals.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them are glass beads; some of them are crystals,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were sewed with fishing thread to be completely transparent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Replicating the visual effect of a water droplet, of course, is easier said than done. Graham Cooks, a professor of analytical chemistry at Purdue University, pointed to the specific strengths of using crystals for that purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrystals have got facets: That gives you this light effect, it gives you this multiple reflection effect,\u201d Professor Cooks said. \u201cSo it also breaks up light and gives you some of the rainbow patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olina Bak, the founder of Drool jewelry, began creating her brand\u2019s signature water-droplet jewelry out of homesickness for her native Greece, while she was abroad in London and it was raining.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just came to me while I was looking at the raindrops falling on my windows,\u201d Ms. Bak said. \u201cI was like, OK, I would like to try and imitate that somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n
To mimic the shape of water drops, which by nature vary in size, Ms. Bak makes all her necklaces by hand, drip by drip, using UV resin, a viscous substance that cures only under ultraviolet light.<\/p>\n
At the London premiere of \u201cBarbie\u201d last month, the Irish actress Nicola Coughlan may not have looked as if she came directly out of the water, but the crystals on her custom look by Wiederhoeft created an impression that wasn\u2019t too far-off.<\/p>\n
The brand\u2019s founder, Jackson Wiederhoeft, said the effect was achieved using a combination of two styles of beading.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s one that\u2019s become kind of a signature for us that we do with these glass, faceted beads, where it has this almost liquid metal effect,\u201d the designer said. \u201cThen we also have been really kind of getting into this chandelier crystal embroidery, where we\u2019re using actual chandelier crystals to create these larger-than-life effects of light.\u201d<\/p>\n
The influencer Isabelle Allain (known to her followers as IzziPoopi), who cultivated a substantial following on TikTok in large part because of her style instincts, recently demonstrated the creation of what she calls a \u201cdry wet dress\u201d for her 1.3 million followers on the platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn TikTok, I find quirky pieces are interesting,\u201d Ms. Allain said during a video call, holding up pieces of her small collection to the camera. Her favorites, she added, are usually wet-looking clothes, because they have \u201cso much texture, so much illusion, and it can be done in so many different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n