As Iris Van Herpen opens her major retrospective in Paris, the avant-garde couturier reflects on the joy of exploring new collaborations
Photo: Christophe Dellière
Iris van Herpen has just cut the ribbon on her exhibition, Iris Van Herpen. Sculpting the Senses debuting at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris. HRH Queen Máxima of the Netherlands was a special guest at the opening, as was First Lady of France Brigitte Macron. The exhibition has been five years in the making and spans her nearly two decades’ long career, showcasing over 100 haute couture pieces in dialogue with contemporary artworks from the likes of Ren Ri, Casey Curran, Rogan Brown, and more, along with natural objects like coral that emanate earthly beauty, which is so often at the genesis of Van Herpen’s work.
“My world is full of contrasts. And my creative development is a way to discover myself,” says Van Herpen from her atelier in Amsterdam. “There is a part of the process that is very conscious, especially the technical side of things, but, at the same time, a lot of the decision making and creative process is intuitive.”
Born in 1984 in a small Dutch village called Wamel, a young Iris practiced classical and contemporary dance, eventually turning to fashion, studying alongside Alexander McQueen and Claudy Jongstra. In 2007, she founded her eponymous couture house – four years later, she was invited to join the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris. At times her clothes appear like hybrid animal skins floating on a human being, at others, they resemble tissue of the mind splayed out like a butterfly skeleton. “Dutch people are very practical; I’ve had people ask if the clothes can be worn to go bicycling,” she laughs, referencing her country’s favorite mode of transportation. “Most of them can.”
Photo: Solve Sundsbo
From her atelier, surrounded by some 30 employees, she has been able to look at her learning curve. “I discovered that I’m developing myself as much as my work; and it’s a dialogue between.” If the couturier is conscious about being consistent in her vision, she contends that she’s still discovering things as she goes along. Who is Iris van Herpen?
An avant-gardiste, a constant force, an artist. A woman of the future with a visage that appears painted by Amedeo Modigliani. “I’ve learned that, to me, fashion is really a form of art. I’m not very interested in the short-term trends of the seasons. I’m looking at fashion in a very different way, focusing on the long term, and I look at fashion from an innovative approach as well.” She cites techniques like 3D printing, laser cutting, and making files (Van Herpen made her first 3D printed dress in 2010). “Once you have those tools and when you understand how to make those files, suddenly, you can work with many more technologies. We have a combination of techniques and materials available today, but there are so many more possible and the sky is really the limit,” she states. “I really believe that in the coming decades – in terms of materiality and technicality – there will be many new implementations into fashion that some of them are even hard to imagine, I think.”
To Van Herpen, fashion is the intersection of science, architecture, art, and other forms of design. “The more we start collaborating, the quicker we can move forward,” she presses. Apart from collaboration, the educational system has catching up to do. “A lot of the schools are very focused on teaching [students] how to be designers. It’s very focused on ready-to-wear, on mass production, and in the way they think a designer should behave in that old system. It’s a very isolated process, whereas in reality, as a designer, you have to collaborate with a lot of different types of people.” Van Herpen asserts that many young designers are searching for a new system. “They don’t want to repeat what has been done the last 100 years because it’s not a system for our future. They are thinking about the very early stages of the process, which is the material development. They want to be in contact with the places where they make their rules and their silks and their cottons, and they want to understand the whole process from the beginning up until the end. The academies are still teaching in a way that all of that is out of your sight. You’re just designing, making a beautiful sketch, and sending it to the factory where they make it.” Van Herpen attests that the only way to change the system today is by being in it, understanding all the different layers of the process; all the people involved from making a garment from the very beginning, right until the end, in the store.
Iris Van Herpen. Photo: Robin de Puy
While a baker is expected to know the origins and quality of the ingredients used, a jeweler about the stones employed, and a perfumer the flowers, designers are not afforded that same luxury. “Even to understand the influence of the quality of life on the animals and the quality of the material after, for example, with the wool, that’s also something I only just learned. If you only know 10% of what you’re doing, you will never be able to really design a personalized system. I think a lot of people that go into fashion today, they see the issues. I also think there’s a lot more conversation about this in magazines, which is really important.”
Van Herpen could have become a sculptor or an architect, but chose fashion. “Because fashion is so personal. For me, there’s no difference between a sculpture, a painting, or a very beautiful piece of fashion. I think they’re all in the same creative universe. I feel the freedom of expressing this as an art form. At the same time, what is really important for me in fashion is that it is an interaction with your body and your identity,” she notes, adding that this is surely in relation to her dance background. “It’s an emotional interaction that I’m looking for when I design.” Iris Van Herpen. Sculpting the Senses.
Until April 28, 2024, MAD Paris
Originally published in the January 2024 issue of Vogue Arabia
