How Gelée Is Turning Gelatin into an Object of Desire
- Savannah Bradley
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
Zoe Messinger, founder of the cult-favorite edible art brand, is reimagining gelatin as a medium for nourishment, beauty, and spiritual connection.
There's a childlike magic in watching food sparkle, sweat, glisten, melt, break, and freeze, and there's arguably nothing more satisfying than watching something as simple as jelly tremble under kitchen light. For Zoe Messinger, founder of cult-favorite gelatin brand Gelée, that tremble is practically kinesiology. What began as a personal healing practice around food evolved into a full-fledged design philosophy ("There’s something so true about joy and play being a vital nutrient to both our body and soul," she told Vogue in 2024), and found root in the retro-whimsical properties of gelatin.
In conversation with HALOSCOPE, Messinger opens up about the journey of starting Gelée, and how texture and taste can converge into something both intimate and transcendent — not unlike fashion.
This interview has been edited for grammar and clarity.
SAVANNAH EDEN BRADLEY: You’ve said before that Gelée was born during a time of personal healing for you — how did that experience shape the brand’s identity and the way you approach food as both nourishment and play and art?
ZOE MESSINGER: I'm somebody [who's] always been on the journey, whatever that means to you, just a deeper journey. An inquisitive, curious one that can feel really raw and intense, and also really alive and awake. I think that I've had many profound experiences in my life, and I built Gelée as a tool and a brand to help people on the journey. In whatever way they need — but encompassing nourishment, play, light, joy, and all the things that can illuminate life and yourself from the inside out.
SEB: What I love about your brand language is how deeply sensual and playful it can be. How do you see pleasure and play informing not just how we eat, but how we connect with each other?
ZM: Pleasure and play are the two most important things to me. I'm a very sensorial person: taste, touch, sound, smell — energy. Living through my senses, while being aligned with my intuition and treating life like a playground, is the most direct way for me to connect to Spirit, which then connects me to those around me. Pleasure and play are at the core of how we connect with each other. I mean, you can trace it all the way back to Adam and Eve — intimacy, creation, connection all come from play and sensuality.
"What can we do to make this earth, that is so wonderful and amazing and expansive, alive?"
SEB: Going off of the sensory world, we have to talk about your collaboration with Caroline Zimbalist. The edible rose dress was such a delicious moment. How did that collaboration come about, and what excites you most about working at the intersection of food and fashion?
ZM: Food and fashion are two of my greatest passions. They are both self expressions that play with the seasons, tones, textures, how they feel against your skin, in your mouth, how they interplay — it’s all sort of the same, the same thread and ingredients. When envisioning Gelée, before even launching, I imagined models walking down a runway at Fashion Week holding orbs of luminous, glowing Gelée, with jewels or accessories floating. So when Caroline and I were connected organically, it felt like the stars had aligned. We were and are fans of each other's work, and it was all very synergistic. We work and play from the same philosophy. Caroline's work is biodegradable, good for you, good for the planet, sustainable, regenerative. In fact, her closet of curiosities is pretty much the same as my pantry — natural fibers and natural food dyes that are made from fruits and vegetables like beets, chlorophyll, and spirulina. There's so much alignment, synergy, and electricity.
The dress was hand-painted, hand-constructed, and very tactile, sensorial, and playful. This piece was created with an organic, holistic philosophy, keeping every part of the ecosystem in mind.
SEB: Gelatin, as you’ve highlighted, can function as a biodegradable bioplastic. How do you imagine Gelée contributing to conversations around sustainability, both in food, fashion, and design?
ZM: Gelée is rooted in ancient philosophy with a modern lens. Gelée is made from grass-fed pasture-raised beef gelatin — just bones, essentially. And so that’s already naturally regenerative and sustainable, because it's bones that would otherwise get discarded from the meat, and you're getting all of the collagen and the protein. It's a full-cycle food system philosophy. I think that's just one conversation out of so many that are being had right now, falling in the intersection of food, fashion, and design, and all three separate of— What can we do to make this Earth, that is so wonderful and amazing and expansive, alive? What can we do to maintain it and make it thrive, make it healthy, treat it like we treat ourselves and other humans around us, and realize that it's a living, breathing organism? Earth is not a grid on a video game or a simulation; it's elemental, it's energy, it's spirit. When it thrives, we thrive.
SEB: Gelatin itself is also quite visual, tactile, sculptural. Do you see it as more of a culinary product, a design object, or a performance piece? Or is it all of the above?
ZM: It's all of the above. It has a life force. It moves. Jiggles. It's porous, it breathes. It's multi-dimensional. Gelée is your muse.
SEB: What’s next for you and the brand? Do you see any other future collaborations across art, fashion, or even architecture?
ZM: There’s a lot going on — some things that I can’t disclose, new flavors are launching that I’m really excited about, [and] my second collection. My language here mirrors a season of fashion or a painter’s collection because it's so much more than a new flavor to me. It’s my Monet's Lilies, my Miro Bleu, my expression of the era, the moment, the season. Future collaborations [are] where I like to live. I love playing with others to create and redefine.
SEB: If you could serve Gelée in any dream setting — whether that’s a dinner party, a concert, a runway show — where would it be, and what form would it take?
ZM: This is a tough question because I'm a dreamer. I have a lot of dreams, and many of them come true, like the edible dress, which is wild and powerful, and I don’t take that for granted. I think it’s because I say no a lot, and the big yes drops in. Everything is intentional.
Something intergalactic inspires me (however you define that). I felt inspired by the latest Chanel collection and Paris runway show. I felt a connection to the brand in a way I hadn't before. I witnessed people starting to catch on to the cosmic wave — the understanding that we are energy, interconnected, part of a solar system. Gelée in space. I won’t go into detail; I’ll leave it there.
Since we're dreaming, I have a vision of opening a Gelée window, partnering with local farms for seasonal flavor drops and beautiful takeaway boxes. New Yorkers, Parisians, [and] Californians walking home with a translucent, luminous case of Gelée reflecting the seasons for the community, full of collaboration, alive with spirit. 🌀
Savannah Eden Bradley is a writer, fashion editor, gallerina, Gnostic scholar, reformed It Girl, and future beautiful ghost from the Carolina coast. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the fashion magazine HALOSCOPE. You can stalk her everywhere online @savbrads.