Iris Van Herpen

Fashion Designer - Collaborator

About:
Taken from her website

Normal rules dont apply..

Iris van Herpen stands for a reciprocity between craftsmanship and innovation in technique and materials. She creates a modern
view on Haute Couture that combines fine handwork techniques with digital technology .Van Herpen forces fashion to the extreme
contradiction between beauty and regeneration. It is her unique way to reevaluate reality and so to express and underline
individuality.
The essence of van Herpen is expressing the character and emotions of a woman and to extend the shape of the feminine body
in detail. She mixes craftsmanship- using old and forgotten techniques- with innovation and materials inspired on the world to
come.
For me fashion is an expression of art that is very close related to me and to my body.
I see it as my expression of identity combined with desire, moods and cultural setting.
In all my work I try to make clear that fashion is an artistic expression, showing and wearing art, and not just a functional and
devoid of content or commercial tool. With my work I intend to show that fashion can certainly have an added value to the world,
that it can be timeless and that its consumption can be less important then its beginning. Wearing clothing creates an exciting and
imperative form of self-expression. 'Form follows function' is not a slogan with which I concur. On the contrary, I find that forms
complement and change the body and thus the emotion. Movement, so essential to and in the body, is just as important in my
work. By bringing form, structure and materials together in a new manner, I try to suggest and realize optimal tension and
movement.
Iris her designs require every time an unique treatment of material or even the creation of complete new materials. For this reason,
Van Herpen prefers interdisciplinary research
and often collaborates with other artists or scientists.

Who is She?

Born 5 June 1984

Dutch fashion designer

Studied fashion design at ArtEZ Insittue of the

arts Arnhem

Interned at Alexander McQueen & Claudy

Jongstra

Started her own label in 2007

Work and Style

She creates 2 collections a year.

Work expresses interests in other art from with a general curisotiy of the world
beyond fashion

Uses innovative experiments with techniques and technologies

When aspiring, she learned to work with soft fabrics yet felt limited. This lead her to
experimenting with other materials and concepts to help push her work.

Each piece created could be seen as a sculturpe yet it is intended to be worn.

All work is revolving around body movement.

She was the first to introduce 3D printing into fashion before becoming fascinated
and almost obsessed with the endless potential of 3D designs.

Work is often seen as futuristic.

Collaborations
Iris van Herpen has collaborated with a number of artists from various disciplines, often
on a recurring basis.
Artists/Architects: Philip Beesley, Benthem Crouwel Architects, Isaie Bloch, Irene
Bussemaker, Carlos van Camp, Zach Gold, Bart Hess, Stephen Jones, Julia Koerner,
Rem D. Koolhaas, Russell Maliphant, Neri Oxman, Heaven Tanudiredja, Noritaka
Tatehana, Joost Vandebrug, Daniel Widrig, Jolan van der Wiel
Musicians: Beyonc, Salvador Breed, Bjrk, Grimes, Lady Gaga, Joey Yung
Photographers/Filmmakers: Pierre Debusschere, Zach Gold, Nick Knight, Inez van
Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Geoffrey Lillemon, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Todd
Selby, Joost Vandebrug, Vincent van de Wijngaard
Choreographers: Nanine Linning, Benjamin Millepied
Special Projects: A Magazine, Daphne Guinness, Casey Legler, Tilda Swinton

Awards
2015

Marie-Claire Prix de la Mode, Best Dutch Conceptual Designer

2014 ANDAM Fashion Award
2013 Golden Eye Award
2013 Dutch Design Awards, category fashion
2013 Marie Claire prix de la Mode, best Dutch Designer
2010 Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Awards
2010 Dutch Fashion Incubator Awards
2010 Dutch Accessory Awards
2010 Dutch Design Awards, RADO
2009 Dutch Design Awards, best product of fashion and accessory
2009 Dutch Media Awards

Hacking Infinity

Fall/Winter 2015-16
Iris van Herpen explores ideas of terraforming modifying the
biosphere of another planet to resemble that of Earth.
The collection explores the possibility of new geographies and our
place within them. The desire to reconfigure space finds expression in
light performative materials, which interact with the movement of the
body, biomimetic structures and saturated spectral colors. The central
geometry is the circle, in both silhouette and cut. The spherical
shape of planetary bodies and the symbol of a boundless hackable
infinity unfolds before us in a constant flow of mandala-like forms.
Hand plisseed geometries both follow and frame the body while
optical lighting film belts propose a polymorphic silhouette and
challenge our perception of the figure in space.
This season Van Herpen has developed an extremely light,
translucent stainless steel weave, hand burnished to imprint a sheen
of nebula-like colors, whose infinite variations make each garment
unique. Three-dimensionality is imperative to Van Herpen, and she
continues her research with the creation of a 3D hand woven textile
with designer Aleksandra Gaca. One weave like a mineral geology
encases the body while the other cushions it with a light linear grid,
threaded and fringed with a raw edge.
Van Herpen pursues her collaboration with the Canadian professor of
architecture Philip Beesley on the creation of digitally fabricated
dresses made from a black garden of fractal like geometries.
The shoes for the collection were made in collaboration with the
Japanese shoe designer Noritaka Tatehana. They are crafted from 3D
printed translucent crystal clusters and laser-cut leather.

Magnetic Motion

SS 15 ready-to-wear
collection
For her SS 15 ready-to-wear collection, presented in Paris on Sep 30th,
2014, Iris van Herpen explores the interplay of magnetic forces. By
thoroughly examining the representation of dynamic forces of attraction and
repulsion, the designer fuses nature and technology.
Earlier this year, van Herpen visited CERN the Large Hadron Collider,
whose magnetic field exceeding that of earths by 20,000 times, provided
inspiration for Magnetic Motion.
I find beauty in the continual shaping of Chaos which clearly embodies the
primordial power of natures performance, says Van Herpen describing the
essence of the collection.
Van Herpen stayed true to her spirit of bridging fashion and other disciplines
by collaborating with the Canadian architect Philip Beesley, and the Dutch
artist Jolan van der Wiel.
Beesley is a pioneer in responsive living sculpture whose poetic works
combine advanced computation, synthetic biology, and mechatronics
engineering. Van der Wiel is an artist and craftsman whose work with
magnetic tension has resulted in dynamic sculptures and installations that
bring to mind the power of volcanic eruptions. Both artists strive to erase the
boundaries between nature and technology in their work, which coincides
with the direction of van Herpens creative aim.
The designer worked with techniques like injection molding and laser cutting
on maze like structures, 3-D printing and intricate architectural handwork on
dresses, jackets, trousers, skirts and blouses giving them dynamic shapes
and surfaces that echo the bodys movement. The three dimensional nature
and the layering of the garments give them volume.
Emphasizing light and shadow play, the minimalist color palette of black,
white, midnight blue, and nude allows the designer to concentrate on the
garments structure. Micro webs of lace veil and reveal the luminescent glow
of crystal forms, while triacetate feathers punctuate the soft drapes and
volumes. The controlled structure of the clothes is offset by the chaotic
structure of the accessories, where, due to the nature of magnetic growth,
no two items are alike. The shoes, belts, necklaces and clutches were
grown using magnetic fields.

Wilderness Embodied

July 2013 - Paris Haute

Couture Week
Nature is wild. Generated by powerful forces. Its
proliferates by creating startling beauty.
Trough her collaboration with artist Jolan van der
Wiel, who has spent several years ponderingthe
possibilities of magnetism, they have created
dresses whose very forms are generated by the
phenomenon of attraction and repulsion. Iris van
Herpen draws equally upon the life force that pulses
through the sculptures of DavidAltmejd. His wild
organic forms derived from the regenerative
processes of nature have inspired Wilderness
Embodied.
The human spiritis forged of this same vital energy,
coursing and erupting through the limits of the body
in suchresplendent displays of extreme tradition or
technology as piercings, scarification or surgery.This
wild(er)ness of the human body, as unchecked as it
is intimate, is one that the designer hassought to
reveal the collection.With architect Isaie Bloch and
Materialise she continues to develop 3D-printed
dresses, which she was the first to present in both
static and flexible forms. Her partnership with United
Nude's Rem D. Koolhaas and Stratasys has led to
shoes like tangled webs of tree-roots around the foot.

Voltage

2013, Paris Haute Couture

Week
For her fourth collection presented in Paris as a guest member of
the Chambre syndicale de la Haute Couture, Iris van Herpen
explores the electricity of the body. Experimenting with its use in the
field of creation, this collection seeks to portray its tangible
movement and power. This ability of light and electricity to change
states and bodies is reproduced using the most innovative
technologies. Described as an alchemist approach to fashion, Van
Herpens designs perpetually embrace new collaborations with
artists, architects and researchers.
As part of the show she collaborated with new Zealand artist Carlos
Van Camp, echoing his notion of controlling high voltage electricity
and its interaction with the human body. Van Camp experiments
with three million volts running through bodies.
Van Herpen shares Canadian architect Philip Beesleys fascination
with materials and structures. They focus specifically on how the
reaction of chemistry and electricity causes structures to respond to
their environment and react as living beings.
Iris van Herpen is also know for being todays leading fashion
designer in the use of 3d printing. Drawing on the idea of
movement, the flexible 3D printed dresses are a revolution,a result
of collaborations with Neri Oxman of the MIT Media Lab as well as
Keren Oxman and Prof. Craig Carter of MIT with Stratasys, and
architect Julia Koerner with Materialise.
Continuing for the seventh season, the catwalk shoes are the result
of the collaboration between Iris Van Herpen and United Nude.

Hybrid Holism

July 2012, Paris Haute

Couture Week
The project Hylozoic Ground by the Canadian architect and artist
Philip Beesley provided the inspiration for this collection. Hylozoic
refers to Hylozoism, the ancient belief that all matter is in some
sense alive. Beesley created a responsive architectural system
that uses hylozoism in a quite specific way, that is, we are
working with subtle materials, electricity and chemistry, weaving
together interactions that at first create an architecture that
simulates life but increasingly these interactions are starting to act
like life, like some of the ingredients of life. His environment
breathes, shifts and moves in relationship to people walking
through it, touching it, and sensing it.
Microprocessors invest that environment with a primitive or insectlike intelligence like a coral reef or a great swarm.Iris van Herpen
is intrigued by these kinds of possibilities for a future of fashion
that might take on quite unimaginable shapes. Fashion that might
be partly alive and growing, and, therefore, existing partly
independent from us, which in turn allows for a new treatment by
humans: instead of discarding the fashion after use, we cherish,
value, and maintain it in its abilities to change constantly. Van
Herpens translated this future vision in a collection that is highly
complex and incredibly diverse in terms of shape, structure, and
material. For one design, the pythagoras tree' dress Van Herpen
collaborates with architect Julia Koerner using a technique
referred to as mammoth stereolithography which refers to a 3D
printing method. This 3D printed process is built slice by slice from
bottom to top, in a vessel of semi-transparent polymer that
hardens when struck by a laser beam.

Micro

January 2012, Paris Haute

Couture Week
Inspired by the pictures that science photographer
Steve Gschmeissner took using Scanning Electron
Microscope (SEM) technology, Micro zooms in on
the world of microorganisms that is completely
hidden from our sight.
The pictures show specimens that are dead, dried,
and chemically fixated to preserve and stabilize
their structures. Van Herpen remains interested in
the living organism. Her designs allude to armature,
tentacles, cell structures, and plasma. Some seem
moist others glow and move while being worn,
coming to live on the body.

Capriole

July 2011, Paris Haute

Couture Week
Iris van Herpen made her debut in Paris as
member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute
Couture with this collection. Besides being a
compilation of highlights from previous collections,
this new collection also presented five striking
outfits that evoke the feeling just before and during
a free-fall parachute jump. A leap in the air (the
meaning of the French word Capriole) that Van
Herpen once in a while takes to reset her body and
mind.
The five outfits are a reflection of the extreme
feelings experienced during that jump. For
instance, the dress consisting of serpentine forms
made of black acrylic sheets, nicknamed the snake
dress, evokes the mental state at the moment
before the jump when, as Van Herpen explains, all
my energy is in my head and I feel as though my
mind is snaking through thousands of bends.

Escapism Couture

January 2011, Paris Haute

Couture Week
Escaping from everyday reality through addictive
digital entertainment incites in Iris van Herpen not
only feelings of emptiness but also associations
with the grotesque, the extreme and the fantastic.
This collection aims to capture both the exaltation
of these addictions, like the disproportionate
attention for celebrities (the new heroes) and its
dark flipside, the never fulfilled hunger that is
inherent to it.
Another important source of inspiration were the
exuberant baroque sculptures of the American
artist Kris Kuksi. Dramatic bulging spherical shapes
alternate with lace- and skeleton-like 3D-prints, and
silver-grey fabrics that seem to reflect their own
surface.

Crystallization

July 2010, Amsterdam

Fashion Week
At the instigation of ARCAM (Architecture Centre
Amsterdam) a collaboration was organized
between Iris van Herpen and Benthem Crouwel
Architekten. Benthem Crouwels design for a new
extension to Amsterdams Stedelijk Museum had
earned the nickname bath tub.
This inspired Van Herpen to design a dress that
would fall around the wearer like a splash of water,
like being immersed in a warm bath, and to express
in the collection the different states, structures and
patterns of water. Noteworthy is that in this
collection Van Herpen presents her first 3D-print
that she created in collaboration with the Londonbased architect Daniel Widrig and that was printed
by .MGX by Materialise.

Synesthesia

February 2010, London

Fashion Week
Synaesthesia is a neurological condition that
results in a combination of sensory perceptions. To
underscore the hypersensitivity of the body, and to
visualize this entanglement of sensory perceptions
Van Herpen secured shiny metal foil on specially
treated leather that generated a confusing visual
effect without a steady fixation point.Synesthesia is
an extreme sensitivity of the body, as a result of
which all the senses merge. You can see colors
when hearing music or experience taste.
People who have this 'abnormality' are actually
living in a constant natural trip. In this collection Iris
has approached the body as a manipulative,
sensitive and fragile object by enlarging body parts
through transparency, movement and extreme
repetition so as to emphasize extremely refined
craftsmanship. She confused the eyes and gives
clothing an extra dimension by combining
movement with liveliness. "I wonder if in the future
clothing will support some of our senses or even
take over."

Radiation Invasion

September 2009, London

Fashion Week
Radiation Invasion translates Iris van Herpens
question of what we could do with our daily
(over)dose of electromagnetic waves and digital
information streams if we could see them. In these
designs the wearer seems to be surrounded by a
whimsical complex of wavy rays, flickering patterns,
vibrating particles, and reflecting pleats.The
collection is about all the invisible rays (particularly
electronics) with which we are constantly
surrounded and immersed.
Something which is both scary and interesting. Iris
thinks that in the future other ways will be found to
detect radiation, where, apart from the body, a new
dimension will develop. This collection is her
representation of how it would look if we could
detect radiation in the future and if we could control
the radiation waves, if we, as a magnet, could
attract and repel. 'Being beautiful" gets a whole
new and more comprehensive form.

Mummification

January 2009, Amsterdam

Fashion Week
Van Herpen became captivated with the macabre
beauty of ancient Egyptian mummification and the
intense devotion that surrounds the process. With
techniques to swaddle, wrap and cover the body
along with the typical geometric and graphic patterns
of Egyptian mummies, she elaborates on the practice
of the ancient Egyptians to create a new reality for
their dead. She considers the 'reality' that they
created for their dead as the reality, while they
considered daily life an illusion.
She understood this as follows: take everything that
seems obvious at face value, but create your own
reality. Iris realized this chain of thoughts by
combining their ancient techniques with modern
materials and thus creating her own new reality. The
wrapping and binding of the body and the emphasize
of certain parts of the body such as the Egyptians did
(as the head) are central in the collection. The
collection is handmade from (ECCO) leather, which
has been treated with different techniques and lace,
tens of thousands of eyelets, ball chain, motorcycle
chain and thousands of metal balls.

Refinery Smoke

July 2008, Amsterdam

Fashion Week
The ambiguous character of refinery smoke, both
beautiful and poisonous, inspired this collection.
Van Herpen translated the elusiveness of industrial
smoke into specially woven metal gauze. She
turned metal threads into an extremely soft and
pliable material. The metal kept its characteristic of
oxidation and Van Herpen considers this inherent
chemical process as (visually) reflecting the dual
aspect of industrial smoke.
The organic, liquid, up-creeping smoke looks
smooth and dynamic, yet at the same time is
frightening, sinister and dangerous. Iris wants to
give the viewer this mixed feeling about the
collection by manipulating the unpleasant industrial
material metal mesh into something soft and lively.
The smoke seems to be alive, is tragic but also soft
like something you would want to wear. "Will there
be a time when clothing is unnecessary and that
something as intangible as smoke could be 'worn'
on the body?