Jenna Ortega’s upcoming film grapples with robots, dystopian tech, and the limits of artificial intelligence. In a twist, her latest red carpet look is distinctly human-made.
At the New York premiere of Klara and the Sun, the star wore an intricate one-of-a-kind dress crafted entirely by hand. The twisted bodice featured corset boning made of steel rods, crystals, and multicolored beads. A structured hourglass silhouette cascaded into dangling tassels of futuristic fringe. The back was all the more intense, with tightly wound lacing running up her spine. It’s the work of 24-year-old designer Elias Matso, who has been holding the dress for Ortega for the occasion. “It’s hand-made, human-made, a lot of effort...” she said on the red carpet. “So it’s very fitting for the film.”
Klara and the Sun, based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 dystopian novel of the same name, finds Ortega playing the titular humanoid robot looking for companionship. Her accompanying premiere dress, poetically, focused on the irreplacability of human effort.
It’s part of Matso’s “Melt with Me” collection, which is full of extreme proportions and hard-edged textiles. A recent graduate of Italy’s top-ranking Polimoda fashion school, Matso’s corset-focused work is tactile and painstakingly detail-oriented—yielding one-of-one pieces that feel inherently human in an increasingly digitized world. As a result, his highly technical designs have a rare couture allure and have been worn by Julia Fox, Sarah Paulson, and Demi Lovato. Most recently, he co-designed Lisa Rinna’s tutu confection at the 2026 Victoria’s Secret show. Naturally, a subversive dresser like Ortega would be next up.
Ortega is no stranger to an unconventional corset. See her deconstructed Elena Velez bodice and tattered Vivienne Westwood ruffles. Those looks aptly reflected the gothic severity of her role as Wednesday Addams. But this corset dress, made of galvanized wire and carefully placed crystals, is the perfect piece to offset her artificiality onscreen.