In her Fall Winter 24 Couture Collection titled “HYBRID SHOW,” Iris Van Herpen joins her respect for the arts with her fashion expertise during Paris Haute Couture Week. This realization came as she was curating a retrospective at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, capturing 16 years of her groundbreaking work in a show named “Sculpting the Senses.” It was here she acknowledged a missing element in her creative portfolio: her passion for sculpture and painting—arts she grew up immersed in alongside her classical dance training.
Van Herpen unveiled a collection that introduces her inaugural aerial sculptures, aiming to expand how we perceive the symbiosis between fashion and art. Her approach to design, much like sculpture, involves moulage—draping directly onto mannequins, a method that she equates with sculptural artistry. For van Herpen, haute couture and visual art are not distinct practices but are unified in a singular, artistic universe.
The collection features four large-scale sculptures crafted using an array of innovative techniques on tulle, a material synonymous with classical ballet and a staple in van Herpen’s couture pieces. These sculptures are suspended and stretched using steel tubes, exploring her fascination with both the material’s flexibility and structural possibilities.
The inspiration for these sculptures sprang during her move. Two years ago, Van Herpen moved to a setting outside Amsterdam, where the proximity to nature’s undisturbed beauty sparked her creativity. The transition to a more tranquil environment allowed her the mental and physical space to experiment with sculptural forms, influenced daily by nature’s subtle transformations.
Among the sculptures, “Unfolding Time” features curvaceous, hand-pleated silk that symbolizes van Herpen’s sensory experiences in nature, reflecting the phenomenon where time seems to stretch in natural surroundings. The other notable sculptures, “Weightlessness of the Unknown” and “Embers of the Mind,” are conceptual self-portraits depicting the cyclic nature of creation and decay, themes that resonate with Van Herpen’s artistry. These pieces act as meditative explorations of her inner world, achieved through handwork and a connection to the craftsmanship process.
As part of the presentation, Iris Van Herpen’s environmental awareness is also present, inspired by her early exposure to the arts and environmental issues. In her designs, performers are integrated as part of the living art, challenging viewers to reconsider their relationship with the clothing and waste. This theme is vividly portrayed in the “Ancient Ancestors” sculpture, which draws from recent marine biology research and is crafted with materials that evoke the sea. Take a closer look at the Iris Van Herpen Couture FW24 collection presentation in the Gallery below:
