The Marlene Dietrich Dress

The internationally well known actress Marlene Dietrich was a muse for many women of her time and still is today. For the independent womens movement she also stood mainly with her lifestyle but even more with her quite masculine style of clothing, while she never lost her sight of sensuality.

There were letters that prove that Marlene Dietrich worked with her designer Jean Louis in 1958 on a dress that should shine. She wrote: "... that it should also be interactive, so I can radiate as desired and the lights as well. This will amaze the audience and that is good. They will not know whether they are able to imagine the light or whether it really is there." Since the technology was not at this point when she was still alive to connect technology with clothing, the desired result had to remain a vision, which now was adopted by ElektroCouture and The idea of ​​Dietrich.

The lead designer of ElektroCouture, Anja Dragan, designed a shining dress according to the original letters of the icon. The Marlene project provides for a shift in the fashion industry, through the mix of classic design and FashionTech. The dress was presented for the first time with the 25th year of Dietrich's death in 2017.

The special thing about the dress is that it can be operated extremely, so that the production team can also switch between different light variations. Several project partners, such as Swarovski, collaborated for this project, with special crystals for the LEDs and Forster Rohner Textile Innovations, which, with their broidery technology, illuminate the LEDs of Osram with their material.

The story of Marlene's dress and its development was cinematically accompanied by the film production company COS Berlin and officially screened on May 7th. The dress is now traveling around the world and is shown in exhibitions.