Iris van Herpen presents her work at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris (MAD), until April 28, 2024, through a major exhibition which retraces her unique universe. The 39-year-old Dutch designer, who has always used cutting-edge science and technology in her fashion creations since her debut in 2007, looks back here on more than fifteen years of career, including twelve within the official haute couture calendar. Parisian.
“ We went through the archives and tried to tell the whole story of the brand and not just the dresses or the designs, but also the different collaborations and my connection with dance, architecture and science. There are so many stories to tell behind each silhouette. So we also wanted to show the process and the deeper meaning of each thing »she explains.
The journey, which is not chronological but thematic – water, living things, the cosmos, etc. – aims to delve into the mind of the creator, putting her creations into perspective with works of art, selected by the exhibition curators. “It’s a dialogue between the body, dresses, the living world and works of contemporary art. These are works from the natural sciences as well as works of esoteric philosophy »comments Cloé Pitiot, co-curator of the exhibition.
Life sciences are indeed everywhere. From the first rooms, dedicated to water, we find blown glass dresses creating the illusion of a “splash” or bubbles as if levitating, others taking inspiration from life under the seas take the form of shells or small marine animals in 3D printed silicone, the designer’s favorite tool. A monumental work by the Japanese art collective Mé, representing a giant wave, skillfully responds to them.
Like bones colliding
Fauna and flora constitute the designer’s privileged terrain for finding inspiration. She admits to being inspired by nature, the laws of physics, architecture, artists, but also scientific research on what lives or has lived. She regularly discusses with researchers and carries out research on magnetism at CERN. [Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire]in Geneva, and collaborates with the Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), notably to develop new 3D printing techniques. We thus find a strapless dress with 3D printing representing a skeleton, from its fall-winter 2011-2012 collection. In the soundtrack of this room, imagined by his companion, sound designer Salvador Breed, we think we hear bones colliding. Confusing.
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