Iris Van Herpen

Iris Van Herpen is a fashion designer who's work takes material manipulation to the next level. Her work is truly unique and original, with the over-the-top shapes and sizes of her pieces. She uses many different techniques to create structure within her piece such as pleating and gathering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Van Herpen’s fashion designs always express an interest in other art forms, and in a general curiosity of the world beyond fashion. Her collaborations during the research and making process are exemplary for this, as are her innovative experiments with materials, techniques and technologies. She primarily learned to work with soft fabric but quickly felt limited by this, as she wanted to build, construct, and sculpt with the material. This forced her early on in her university cource, to experiment with other materials, and later on to develop materials that approached her concept the closest.

Sculptural is a term much often used to describe her work and indeed, the designs can function very well on their own as sculptures, as several exhibitions on her work have proven. However Her work remain wearable as she also has a love for the movement of the body. Van Herpen’s work follow, complete, and change the body and the emotions that accompany it, when simultaneously the body adapts and adopts the new forms. Movement is key. It is of decisive importance for the ultimate design how a moving body reacts on a piece of clothing and, vice versa, how a piece of clothing behaves when worn.

Van Herpen’s uses a lot of technology to help her within her work such as 3D printing which allowed her to be the first to introduce this technology in fashion, and to create astonishing designs with it. Van Herpen became fascinated with the endless design potential of 3D printing. In recent collections she further developed her prints by adding detailed handwork. She collaborates with the Belgian company Materialise NV for the printing of her designs. The 3D prints only added to that other much-heard term to describe Van Herpen’s style: futuristic. Besides the use of new technologies, the term mostly refers to the appearance of her looks. What is very important to realize, though, is that her designs combine new technologies and diligent handwork. In fact, this is characteristic for all Van Herpen’s collections. Exactly this combination of handwork and innovative technologies brings Van Herpen to her edgy designs. She equally values techniques from the past and techniques and technologies of the future, because they have their own power and beauty that, when rightly combined, can be enhanced instead of being substituted by one another.