{"id":229655,"date":"2026-05-13T06:15:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/229655\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T06:15:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:15:24","slug":"for-fashion-iconoclast-iris-van-herpen-nature-is-the-best-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/229655\/","title":{"rendered":"For Fashion Iconoclast Iris van Herpen, \u2018Nature Is the Best Artist\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new Iris van Herpen exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum may chart two decades of the Dutch designer\u2019s practice\u2014but her biomorphic creations are shaped by forces millions upon millions of years older.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coral systems, skeletons, living alga, water, the coil of a snake, and the movement of a bird\u2019s wings are just some of the natural phenomena that have fed into van Herpen\u2019s visual language. Her couture pieces borrow the natural world\u2019s rhythms and structures, adapting them into gravity-defying garments. \u201cNature is the best artist that we have on this planet,\u201d she told me during a preview of the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo look at a fossil that\u2019s 80 million years old, if you really try to comprehend that time, you realize how ephemeral we are as human beings,\u201d she added. \u201cThat is almost the opposite of fashion that we know today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Installation view of \u201cIris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses\u201d at Brooklyn Museum. Photo: On White Wall.<\/p>\n

Beyond Couture<\/p>\n

In fact, \u201cSculpting the Senses<\/a>,\u201d curated by Matthew Yokobosky and Imani Williford, is quite unlike a fashion exhibition. The show, which originated at the Mus\u00e9e des Arts D\u00e9coratifs in Paris in 2023, gathers more than 140 of van Herpen\u2019s tactile, kinetic, and intricate pieces, though it feels more like a journey into the designer\u2019s omnivorous imagination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here, her most iconic works\u2014designs for Lady Gaga and Bj\u00f6rk, among them\u2014are paired with paintings and sculptures by \u200b\u200bcontemporary artists including Agostino Arrivabene, Courtney Mattison, Tara Donovan, and Heishiro Ishino. Illustrations by naturalist Ernst Haeckel pop up, as do a 50-million-year-old fossil and a copy of Ovid\u2019s Metamorphoses. Various sections are dedicated to her myriad fascinations with biology, technology, Surrealism, and the cosmos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/p>\n

Installation view of \u201cIris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses\u201d at Brooklyn Museum. Photo: On White Wall.<\/p>\n

They paint a picture of a designer whose approach to fashion is far from traditional. For instance, while the human form may be her canvas, van Herpen emphasized she\u2019s more keyed into what\u2019s happening under the surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m much more intrigued by the inner workings and scientific reality of our body, which is that every atom that we\u2019re built of is 99.9 percent empty space. We\u2019re practically empty space,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you think about that, it\u2019s just so surreal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Black-and-white<\/p>\n

Iris van Herpen, Skeleton dress, from the Capriole collection, 2011. Collaborator: Isa\u00efe Bloch. Model: Karen Elson. Photo: Luigi & Iango.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most singular of all is van Herpen\u2019s use of cutting-edge tech to craft her materials. In 2010, her Crystallization collection unveiled one of the earliest 3D-printed garments, featuring a spiral skeletal motif, which put her on the map. Since then, she has turned to other fabrication methods such as silicone molding and magnetic sculpting, sometimes in partnership with designer Philip Beesley, her \u201cmentor in materials.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most recently, van Herpen worked with Japanese artist duo A.A. Murakami on freestyle skier Eileen Gu\u2019s Met Gala<\/a> look. Known as the Airo<\/a> dress, it was coated with 8,000 crystalline glass spheres, UV-bonded in place, and equipped with pressurized soap bubble-making technology. It is an evolution of van Herpen\u2019s Seijaku design<\/a> from 2016, which opens the exhibition. The new dress is \u201cmade in a very different way,\u201d she said, \u201cbut the essence is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mannequin<\/p>\n

Installation view of \u201cIris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses\u201d at Brooklyn Museum. Photo: On White Wall.<\/p>\n

Material and Motion<\/p>\n

For van Herpen, her use of technology is simply part of couture\u2019s pursuit of new forms and techniques. The first needle was a tool of innovation, she pointed out, as was the technique of lace-making.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just using the tools that are available today and merging them with all of the innovation that has happened in the past within couture,\u201d she explained. \u201cI see it as one long thread going through history. I\u2019m just adding new elements to it, because couture should never stand still. Any form of art should never stand still.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Model<\/p>\n

Iris van Herpen, Labyrinthe Kimono Dress, from the Sensory Seas collection, 2020. Model: Cynthia Arrebola. Photo: David \u1ee4z\u1ecdchukwu.<\/p>\n

Van Herpen\u2019s own designs are not made to stand still either. Runway videos scattered throughout the show reveal how her works are activated by the human body\u2014they undulate, palpitate, and spiral with the wearers\u2019 movements. \u201cI often look at the garments as micro-dances around the body,\u201d she said. The dynamic textures of her materials come to the fore in the exhibition\u2019s center gallery, where visitors are invited to handle digitally printed organza and silicone spheres.<\/p>\n

Movement is also central to one of her newest creations: a blood-red dress magnificent with arches and pleats that Anne Hathaway donned in the 2026 movie Mother Mary. No static garment, it is constructed over the course of the David Lowery film, metaphorically standing in for the spirit of creativity and collaboration.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Iris van Herpen, Red Mother dress for Mother Mary (2026), on view at the Brooklyn Museum. Photo: Min Chen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so much more than a dress,\u201d said van Herpen. \u201cIn terms of aesthetics, in terms of movement, this look is really far away from the usual codes of VIP dressing. It really becomes, in the film, a ghost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Future Bodies<\/p>\n

The show closes with van Herpen\u2019s visions of a \u201cpost-human\u201d future. But where such discourse has usually projected out a few decades to imagine tech-enabled humans, the designer is looking a million years ahead. How will nature take its course? Van Herpen\u2019s designs here put forward human forms integrated with the elements, their silhouettes reformed by air, as in 2017\u2019s Aeriform collection, or waves, epitomized by the Loie dress from 2025\u2019s Sympoiesis collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is something I\u2019m more intrigued by in the long run: how will our bodies evolve?\u201d she said. \u201cNature will always keep on creating us. That just sparks my imagination\u2014not thinking in 30 years, but thinking in maybe a million years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Model<\/p>\n

Iris van Herpen, Phantom\u2019s Coral Dress, from the Sympoiesis collection, 2025. Model: Akuol Deng Atem. Photo: Rob Rusling.<\/p>\n

Is she in some way designing with an eye toward that future?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mind is not in the future; I try to focus on being here and now. When I try to get into a subconscious state when I design, I always feel those looks resonate to me the most and I somehow speak to the future. The more I plan things out and the more the designs come from my mind, the more current they are,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s as if time is not linear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses<\/a>\u201d is on view at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York, May 16\u2013December 6.<\/p>\n