Exclusive | Wild NYFW robo-dress by tech wiz turned designer blooms when you shake someones hand

Maia Hirsch’s affinity for fashion design doesn’t STEM from a lifelong love of luxe labels like Chanel, Hermès and Dior.   While admittedly an appreciator of haute finery, Hirsch, 24, a mechanical engineer from upstate Ithaca, is more fascinated with scientific systems and robotics than imported silks and lambskin leather. But when the pandemic erupted in 2020, leaving the then-undergrad stranded while studying in Florida, she enrolled in a fashion design course at the Istituto Marangoni Miami — merely as a fun, therapeutic outlet amid the chaos. Now, those stylish sessions have set Hirsch on a technology-paved path to New York Fashion Week 2026, where she’ll be sending her robo-charged regalia down the runway at Times Square nightspot Dramma. “I’m so honored to be changing the idea of what an engineer or a roboticist looks like by breaking stereotypes,” Hirsch, currently working toward her PhD in robotics at Cornell University, exclusively told The Post. “Fashion is a high-visibility industry,” the native Venezuelan continued.“So, my work [as a fashion designer] allows science to go into very public and cultural spaces, where it couldn’t go before.“And I think that’s fantastic.” As an innovator in the world of STEM — short for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics — the go-getting Ivy Leaguer is showcasing her “Blooming Dress,” a battery-operated interactive number that blossoms into a dazzling white flower with a simple handshake, at SFWRunway’s “Future of Fashion” show Saturday. With cotton fabric as its foundation, Hirsch constructed the garb’s moving petals, made of organza, with touch sensors and actuators — devices that enable automation by converting control signals into physical actions like lifting, turning and, yes, blooming. “There are very small touch sensors that go in the palm of the model’s hand,” the high-tech couturier explained.

“So whenever they come in contact with any...