Iris van Herpen has always resisted categorization. Since opening his Amsterdam-based atelier in 2007, the Dutch haute couturier has worked across the worlds of science, technology, art and architecture. There’s no doubt that Van Herpen believes art and fashion exist on the same plane, as she creates and 3D prints her own materials and collaborates with physicists, marine biologists, and architects.
Now it seems like the world is catching up. In 2023, a major survey of her work, “Iris Van Herpen: Sculpture of the Senses,” became one of the most-visited exhibitions at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. In June, an exhibition opened at the Queensland Art Gallery/Museum of Contemporary Art in Brisbane, Australia.
For Van Herpen, one of the great joys of presenting his work in this way is seeing how people engage with it. Most of the time, she says, it’s about taking time to understand the intricacies. Some people stay for hours, while others draw exactly what they see.
“I really learned that people can understand the work better if they take the time to look at it,” says Van Herpen, who was in Brisbane for the opening of an exhibition in Australia.
This meditation on time was also felt at June’s haute couture show. Dubbed the Hybrid Show, it represented van Herpen’s first foray into “pure” artistic practice with four large-scale “aerial sculptures” made from tulle. In addition to these centerpieces, models such as Coco Rocha, who wore glamorous haute couture pieces and interacted with show attendees, were plastered to the walls as if they were in an art gallery. .
The show was inspired by Van Herpen’s experience with audience reactions to his “Sculpting the Senses” exhibition. “But at the same time, of course, what you can’t do in an exhibition is have a living human being in it that brings the work to life. And that was possible in Paris.[The show]was about an hour long, so… It felt like a cross between a runway setting and an exhibition setting.”
For Van Herpen, this was a major change in the way he worked.
“It was really liberating to work on a larger scale…I think there’s a difference between art and design in that sense. For artwork, it’s important to really capture the emotion and convey that to the audience. On the other hand, beauty is a bigger factor in design, because it’s what you end up wearing on your body, and the movement is always in my mind, but also the proportions that make it feminine. ,” the 40-year-old added.
Splitting her time between collaborations with couture ateliers and private practice in sculpture has also redefined her work.