Watching the models walk down the runway at an Iris van Herpen show is like taking a dive into another universe.
In just over a dozen looks, the Dutch designer brings audiences on an otherworldly exploration. From lobes that protrude and curve around the body, to tendrils that flutter with the barest movements, there's a distinctly organic yet fantastical quality to every piece.
That unique voice has paid off for van Herpen. Having dressed some of the most prominent fashion icons - Lady Gaga, Naomi Campbell and Beyonce, to name a few - she's no doubt established herself as one of the foremost designers of our time.
Tech-infused couture
Since launching her eponymous label in 2007, van Herpen has become synonymous with avantgarde couture that combines refined aesthetics with new-age techniques. With her "Crystallisation" collection in 2010, for instance, she became the first haute couturier to show a 3D-printed dress on the runway.
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"Technology has made my work much more dimensional," van Herpen tells Options. "It has given me a certain freedom in my whole process." She adds that the wide array of tools available to her and the ability to mix and match those tools allow her to get closer to replicating natural forms, a key element of her design language.
Asked about the first time she seriously considered the merger of fashion and science, van Herpen says she remembers the moment "very vividly". This was a few years after she founded her label, when she first met Benthem Crouwel Architects. "They were designing the new Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. It was a very abstract question, but they asked me to design a work inspired by their architecture."
Drawing from the museum's bathtub-like shape, van Herpen set to work on a "water dress". "I knew I was not going to be able to make this with fabric in the way I had it in my mind. Then I saw the process of the architects; they were using 3D printing ... and I was really fascinated by this technique."
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Though van Herpen ultimately created her first "water dress" by hand - sowing the seeds for an aquatic motif that has run through her work season after season - that experience with 3D printing stuck with her. "I was so fascinated by the technique that I continued working with different architects on it."
Technology has thus come to play a major role in van Herpen's work, with methods such as injection moulding taking their place alongside more traditional haute couture techniques like beading and embroidery. A single fluttering petal could take days to craft - and that's after the ideation and design process - from laser-cutting to robotics-assisted weaving.
Putting on a show
When the opportunity came for van Herpen to hold her first solo exhibition in Asia, there was certainly no better place than the ArtScience Museum.
"I'm really happy that the exhibition is here," says van Herpen on bringing Sculpting the Senses to the museum at Marina Bay Sands. "It's the perfect place because it really brings art and science together, and that's such a prominent part of my work."
Comprising more than 140 works by van Herpen in a retrospective of her career thus far, Sculpting the Senses debuted in 2023 at the Muse des Arts Dcoratifs in Paris, France, before a showing in Brisbane, Australia.
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For the Singapore edition, artefacts from the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum and artworks by Southeast Asian artists have been placed in each zone. These come on top of other pieces that had been curated for the exhibition when it first showed in Paris.
ArtScience Museum vice-president Honor Harger flags the scientific specimens as helping to "showcase van Herpen's innovative approach to materials, movement and technology". "At the ArtScience Museum, we are drawn to figures who dissolve the boundaries between disciplines, and van Herpen's designs do exactly that."
Of particular interest is the Skeletal Embodiment zone, where a selection of black-and-white pieces is on display. Looking up close at gowns from van Herpen's 2013 "Voltage" and 2020 "Sensory Seas" collections paired with a 270-million-year-old Dimetrodon fossil, one starts to notice components in the dresses that feel almost biological.
Other zones in Sculpting the Senses explore van Herpen's work set in different threads, from water (Water and Dreams; Sensory Sea Life) to mysticism (Mythology of Fear). The experience culminates in the Cosmic Bloom zone, a kaleidoscopic room filled with van Herpen's more colourful creations.
The designer admits that it was difficult to narrow down her body of work to just 140 pieces. "My archive is, of course, much larger than what you see here. Every look was selected so carefully to be in dialogue with the other works and the essence of the themes."
Defining her creations in a concise set of themes was also a challenge, she adds, with there already being multiple motifs and considerations in just a single collection. Even split across different rooms, one can pinpoint commonalities across pieces that aren't necessarily boxed in by the confines of the programme.
Taking things slow
Such is the constantly sprinting mind of van Herpen, who experiences synaesthesia, a phenomenon where one sensory stimulus can trigger a typically unrelated sense. Most commonly, one may associate numbers or letters with specific colours.
Unlike others who might struggle to find inspiration or ideas, van Herpen's biggest limitation is time. "I have so much in my mind, and I have to make choices - time is so limited," she says, not least because each piece takes up to nine months to create.
"[People] want things immediately, and that is a contradiction, a paradox," van Herpen continues, citing clients who have even asked for a couture outfit in as little as two weeks. "You don't ask a painter to paint a painting in two weeks; but in fashion, people are used to having that sort of expectation."
For designers, the constant rush is compounded by the pressures of showing their work on at least a twice-yearly basis. In couture circles, there's Paris Haute Couture Week, which has two editions a year: one for spring/summer collections, and the other for autumn/winter collections.
Pushing against the grain, van Herpen now presents just one couture show a year, joining Balenciaga, Maison Margiela and Thom Browne. "I think it could benefit designers," says van Herpen of the annual schedule. "And even the consumer, too; there's so much being thrown away every season, and it would be great for the whole cycle within fashion if people would slow down a bit."
On the horizon
Giving herself time means having more room to play and explore, says van Herpen. Mulling over the technologies on her radar, she says she's been experimenting with four-dimensional printing, an advanced version of 3D printing where printed objects change their form over time.
For her upcoming collection, which she will present in July, van Herpen is looking at incorporating living materials, so pieces will continue to grow even after the design process is completed.
Of course, taking the path less travelled with such innovations is rarely a straightforward task, requiring multiple iterations before a viable design is created. "I don't choose the easy way, that's for sure," says van Herpen with a laugh.
But she points out that experimenting has always come naturally to her, and, most critically, doing so has helped her grow as a designer. "It's an evolution over many years. I could not have had the process that I have now, 10 years ago ... It's really a build-up of knowledge."
Also on the docket for van Herpen is to bring Sculpting the Senses to the Netherlands and the US. Beyond that, she's working on a new dance production, which is set to premiere in New York this September. She adds that she's been working on costume design for an upcoming film, though she's tight-lipped about the details.
As van Herpen speaks about her projects, we can't help but notice how varied they are. We think back to her recent venture into sculpture, with the four-part Unfolding Time debuting at her 2024 show. "I don't believe fashion stands by itself," she explains. "It's really in dialogue with all the layers of life around us ... I'm trying to visualise these invisible connections between fashion and all the other realms."
