{"id":244749,"date":"2026-05-27T02:17:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/244749\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T02:17:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:17:26","slug":"iris-van-herpens-couture-goes-on-view-at-brooklyn-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/244749\/","title":{"rendered":"Iris van Herpen\u2019s Couture Goes on View at Brooklyn Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walking into \u201cIris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses<\/a>\u201d at the Brooklyn Museum<\/a>, visitors first encounter the Seijaku dress (2016), its surface encrusted with hundreds of glass bubbles that float around the body. A version of the dress was recently reworked for Eileen Gu at the Met Gala<\/a>, but here it stands before a frozen wave by \u76ee (M\u00e9), as Salvador Breed\u2019s soundscape resonates through the galleries. The garment is closer than a museum object should be; van Herpen<\/a> wanted it that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really pushed how close I could bring the audience towards the garments,\u201d the Dutch couturier tells Galerie. \u201cThe museum was quite scared, I guess. Theoretically, people are so close that they can touch the work\u2014and that\u2019s what I wanted. The closer the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

On view through December 6, \u201cSculpting the Senses\u201d is van Herpen\u2019s first major American show. It is also the first to place her 140 haute couture creations alongside works from the Brooklyn Museum\u2019s<\/a> collection, fossils from the American Museum of Natural History<\/a>, and specimens from the Yale Peabody Museum and the Staten Island Museum.<\/p>\n

Since launching at Paris\u2019s Mus\u00e9e des Arts D\u00e9coratifs<\/a> in 2023, van Herpen continued to evolve the show. Looking back, she asserted, has pushed her forward. \u201cWhen [the Paris] exhibition<\/a> opened, I started working on these aerial sculptures,\u201d she says of Weightlessness of the Unknown (2024), which makes its debut here. \u201cI\u2019m sure it had to do with going back into my work\u2014feeling the need to translate that into a more aerial perspective\u2026 zooming out to capture a bird\u2019s eye view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curated with Matthew Yokobosky<\/a> and Imani Williford, this is the largest and most personal iteration yet. Van Herpen describes the months spent combing through archives of her Amsterdam<\/a> atelier as \u201clike going through my diary, and then picking the ones to live here.\u201d Eleven themed chapters unfold in her chosen order, moving from water to cosmos, with stops at anatomy, fear, growth, and flight.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Mannequin\"Mannequin<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIn the \u201cWater and Dreams\u201d gallery, the Seijaku Dress (2016) stands before a frozen wave by \u76ee (M\u00e9).
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Model\"Model<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLiving Algae Look from Iris van Herpen\u2019s Sympoiesis collection, a collaboration with Chris Bellamy (2025). Made from Pyrocystis lunula algae, nutrient gel, H2O, silicone, silk organza, and tulle. Modeled by Stella Maxwell.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Molly SJ Lowe<\/p>\n

1. Water and Dreams<\/p>\n

The diary opens in water. And in van Herpen\u2019s hands, water behaves like a dream, slipping between states. It pours into glass, hardens into fabric, blooms into something almost alive. Past the Seijaku, water continues to find new bodies through the Water dress (2010), molded from heat-treated PETG; the Dimensionism dress (2020), made with Sirius glass blown by Austrian master Bernd Weinmayer; and the Sumimagashi dress (2019), worn by Grimes in her \u201cViolence\u201d music video<\/a>. Central to this chapter is the Living Algae look (2025), created with biodesigner Chris Bellamy from 125 million Pyrocystis lunula algae cultivated in seawater baths. Alive inside a misted glass case, the piece emits light when the wearer moves.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Woman\"Woman<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHydrozoa Dress from Iris van Herpen\u2019s Sensory Seas collection (2020), a collaboration with Shelee Carruthers. Made of PETG and glass organza. Modeled by Cynthia Arrebola.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: David \u1ee4z\u1ecdchukwu<\/p>\n

2. Sensory Sea Life<\/p>\n

The next room submerges the body. Hydrozoa (2020), made with artist Shelee Carruthers in glass organza, was worn by Lady Gaga<\/a> while promoting her Chromatica album. Beside it, the digitally printed organza circles, heat-bonded to laser-cut fabric dendrites, of the\u00a0Hydromedusa\u00a0dress (2020) wrap and undulate the body like a jellyfish in motion. Van Herpen\u2019s dance background is everywhere here, with each silhouette engineered for the body to swim through it.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Exhibit\"Exhibit<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of the \u201cForces Behind the Forms\u201d gallery.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

3. Forces Behind the Forms<\/p>\n

The third room narrows in toward the architecture inside living things. From the geometries of radiolarians to the prismatic cells of honeycomb, the garments here draw on morphogenesis, the process by which bodies build themselves. Van Herpen studied Ernst Haeckel<\/a>, the 19th-century biologist who drew microscopic life in obsessive detail. The Empyrean dress and gown (2021), developed with paper sculptor Rogan Brown for her Earthrise collection, mimic the coral on Haeckel\u2019s pages through laser-cut recovered ocean plastic.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Exhibition\"Exhibition<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of the \u201cAlchemical Atelier\u201d gallery.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

4. Alchemical Atelier<\/p>\n

In the rotunda, van Herpen\u2019s Amsterdam studio seems to have landed inside the museum. She calls her method \u201ccraftolution,\u201d a fusion of craft and evolution: handwork alongside 3D printing, embroidery alongside laser-cutting, and failure alongside discovery. Sample boards crowd the walls with pleated folds, silicone webs, branching laser-cutouts, and printed organza. Microscopes invite visitors to look closer, while hours of unedited atelier footage play across cascading fabric panels.<\/p>\n

Most of the room\u2019s inhabitants began as rejects. \u201cOn the board here, you see lots of samples that have failed, basically, that did not become a dress in the end,\u201d van Herpen says. \u201cBut, to me, they are a starting point. Each one is sort of the beginning of a new idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a corner, the Radiography dress (2014), made with multidisciplinary designer Philip Beesley after they visited the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is a honeycomb of laser-cut PETG cones joined with silicone. Beside it, Tom\u00e1\u0161 Libert\u00edny\u2019s Seed of Narcissus (2025) is a crystal cocoon coated in beeswax honeycomb, built over months by thousands of bees. One honeycomb is cut by lasers in a studio. The other was built by the creatures that invented it.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Exhibition\"Exhibition<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of the \u201cSynesthesia\u201d gallery.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

5. Synesthesia<\/p>\n

Van Herpen sees sound. Music appears to her as a pattern, a mild form of synesthesia that runs throughout the exhibition. Breed, her collaborator of 17 years, composed the soundscapes that animate each gallery, each composition based on the room\u2019s theme. \u201cWhen I work on textures and materials, he\u2019s able to translate that into a sound,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s no one else who can do it so precisely, because he knows me so well, and he understands the themes so deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n

This crossover becomes visible in Dichotomy (2019), whose concentric lines echo sound waves. Beside it, Naum Gabo\u2019s Linear Construction in Space No. 2 (1969), a sculpture made from taut nylon filaments stretched into curving planes, offers another version of visible vibrations. Across the room, the Bene Geserit gown (2021), created for Grimes and named after the Dune sisterhood that weaponizes sound, uses ripples of mirror mylar and silicone to catch light the way air catches sound. It faces Enrico Ferrarini\u2019s R-Evoluzione (2014), a ceramic figure caught mid-transformation, its body twisting and hands shielding its ears as if sound shrieked through it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really about bringing the senses together. That\u2019s what synesthesia is,\u201d she says. \u201cApparently, we all have it when we\u2019re really young\u2014at one year old, our senses are all connected. I think art can stimulate that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Model\"Model<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tShift Souls Dress from Iris van Herpen\u2019s Shift Souls collection (2019). Made from laser-cut Komon Koubou textile, silk organza, and Mylar. Modeled by Issa Lish.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: \u00a9 S\u00f8lve Sundsb\u00f8<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Three\"Three<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of the \u201cSkeletal Embodiment\u201d gallery.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

6. Skeletal Embodiment<\/p>\n

A 180-million-year-old marine reptile fossil from the American Museum of Natural History<\/a> stretches along one wall with three garments facing it like distant descendants. The Skeleton dress (2011), copper-electroplated and 3D-printed with the architect Isa\u00efe Bloch, splays open at the ribs. A 50-million-year-old stingray and an 80-million-year-old herbivorous dinosaur rest nearby.<\/p>\n

Artists from Michelangelo<\/a> to Thomas Eakins studied \u00e9corch\u00e9s, flayed anatomical models that exposed bodies\u2019 inner architecture. Van Herpen does a related kind of looking, then turns the hidden structures outward as exoskeletons. After years of collaborating with biologists, she pulls from any body: fossil, fish, dinosaur, plant. \u201cThrough our daily lives, we tend to separate ourselves from nature. But we have animals, plants, and humans\u2014and obviously, we\u2019re all one. The idea I once had of myself is just not true.\u201d She tells Galerie that this came in part from James Lovelock, the scientist behind the Gaia hypothesis. \u201cHe explains that the world is one organism, and that makes us part of a larger body, just as the microorganisms within us are part of a larger body.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Art\"Art<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of \u201cThe Mythology of Fear\u201d gallery.\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Model\"Model<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhantom\u2019s Coral Dress from Iris van Herpen\u2019s Sympoiesis collection (2025). Made from brass wires, cotton, and thermoplastic. Modeled by Andrea Guti\u00e9rrez Arcas.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Gio Staiano<\/p>\n

7. The Mythology of Fear<\/p>\n

Here, the body becomes a bird, a snake, maybe a chimera. The\u00a0Bird\u00a0dress (2013), worn by Scarlett Johansson<\/a> for\u00a0Vogue M\u00e9xico, is hand-sewn from countless layers of laser-cut Dragon Skin silicone over ivory cotton, with three 3D-printed bird skulls emerging from its \u201cfeathers.\u201d Nearby, the Alchemic neckpiece and skirt (2008) and Snake dress (2011), worn by Bj\u00f6rk<\/a> on tour, sheath the body in dark scales and metal.<\/p>\n

Fear, for van Herpen, begins when a body stops being itself. In darker moments, she often returns to the world of Hieronymus Bosch<\/a>, whose Dutch hometown neighbored her own. \u201cBosch really taught me the duality of the positive and the negative,\u201d she says. \u201cHe has these utopic worlds and these demonic worlds\u2014and they are part of a whole. When you look at The Garden of Earthly Delights<\/a>, it\u2019s a beautiful painting; you have these worlds, but you can close it, and then it becomes one all-encompassing world. There\u2019s beautiful philosophy in his work that I refer to and keep coming back to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Fashion\"Fashion<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of the \u201cGrowth Systems\u201d gallery.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

8. Growth Systems<\/p>\n

This chapter traces van Herpen\u2019s fascination with the unseen infrastructure of growth and with the dendritic networks linking the organic world to man-made design. Whether in tree roots, mycelium, coral reefs, Gothic stone arches, cathedrals, or forests, she finds systems that branch with the same logic. The Cathedral dress (2012), made in collaboration with Isa\u00efe Bloch and the Belgian 3D-printing firm Materialise, reimagines Gothic architecture in copper-electroplated polyamide, emulating the warm patina of waxed wood. Placed next to a 19th-century Gothic-Revival chair from the museum\u2019s collection, the garment reveals a shared reliance on pointed vaults to disperse weight outward, like a tree extending its canopy. Stepping even closer to soil, the laser-cut eco-leather lace of the Luminous Lichen gown (2021) maps the sprawling, cooperative pathways of fungal networks across the body. For van Herpen, old craft and new technology are extensions of the same natural intelligence.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Mannequin\"Mannequin<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of the \u201cGrowth Systems\u201d gallery.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Museum\"Museum<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of the \u201cCabinet of Curiosities\u201d gallery.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

9. Cabinet of Curiosities<\/p>\n

Inside glowing glass, iridescent morpho butterflies, saturated beetles, and scientific illustrations by Ernst Haeckel and \u00c9mile-Allain S\u00e9guy gather with a 1732 copy of Ovid\u2019s Metamorphoses<\/a> and a cowrie-shelled, bridal mask from Papua New Guinea. Each curiosity feels like an artifactual testament to van Herpen\u2019s obsession with shape-shifting. In Harold Edgerton\u2019s multi-flash photograph of dancer Gus Solomons Jr., rapidly moving limbs blur into a wing-like sequence, human choreography mimicking biological anatomy. Picking up on similar animalistic motion, the Coenesthesia headpiece (2018) articulates with the precision of a centipede, while nine surrounding runway videos project van Herpen\u2019s muses in perpetual motion, echoing the dancer\u2019s fluid transformations.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Fashion\"Fashion<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of the \u201cCosmic Bloom\u201d gallery.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Abstract\"Abstract<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of Rob Wynne\u2019s Extra Life (2022) in the \u201cCosmic Bloom\u201d gallery.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

10. Cosmic Bloom<\/p>\n

In the final rooms, the physical world seems to yield to the infinite. Here, visitors pass through Rob Wynne\u2019s<\/a> Extra Life (2022), a celestial field of mirrored glass discs, into a realm where mannequins hang at angles that forget gravity. On a vast screen, French world-champion skydiver Domitille Kiger dances through the atmosphere in a billowing blue Earthrise gown (2021).<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re things about exploring freedom,\u201d van Herpen notes. \u201cI\u2019ve been doing skydiving myself, and to me, it\u2019s really a reset\u2014you feel your own fragility and let go of all your daily thinking.\u201d Kiger, she adds, \u201creally dances into the sky. As a dancer myself, that would be my ultimate freedom. If you can dance in three dimensions.\u201d In this room, the designs come alive, couture unburdening the body to briefly levitate beyond earth.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Fashion\"Fashion<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of the \u201cNew Nature\u201d gallery.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Paula Abreu Pita<\/p>\n

11. New Nature<\/p>\n

The final chapter pushes van Herpen into a post-human landscape, exploring the blurred boundaries of nature and artifice. Syntopia (2018) appears to flutter even in stillness, its sheer organza petals layered over a delicate armature, suggesting a bird\u2019s wing caught between beats. Nearby, the soft pink Lo\u00efe dress (2026), named for dancer Lo\u00efe Fuller, fans like fabric mid-twirl, while Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s<\/a> Heliosphere gown (2023) from her Renaissance World Tour<\/a> rests centrally in the room with a star-power all its own.<\/p>\n

A wall of portraits shows Lady Gaga<\/a>, Tilda Swinton<\/a>, Rihanna<\/a>, Cate Blanchett<\/a>, and other iconic women wearing van Herpen\u2019s designs, turning the room into an alternative red carpet of sorts. This room echoes the \u201cfeminist meaning to the exhibition\u201d van Herpen cited to Galerie. \u201cMy work is actually a way of expressing my own feminine perspective towards an industry where there is too much male domination on the question of \u2018what is femininity?\u2019 Within fashion, there has been way too much focus on the outside beauty of a woman\u2014but the real beauty is on all sides\u2026 My work also talks about the intelligence within us. It\u2019s not just about wearing a garment for its beauty, but about wearing it to express who you are, how you are transforming, and where you want to go. Fashion needs women to bring that deeper conversation into its history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Silhouette\"Silhouette<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLoie Dress from the Sympoiesis collection (2025). Made from silk satin and resin. Modeled by Akuol Deng Atem.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Gio Staiano<\/p>\n

By the exit, the advantage of seeing van Herpen\u2019s work in a museum setting is clear: time slows down. On a runway or red carpet, her garments flash by in a transient surge of motion. Here, they can be studied. \u201cIn an exhibition, you can spend an hour in front of a garment, and that\u2019s when something starts talking to you,\u201d she said. Across eleven chapters, her designs transform into fossils, waves, skeletons, fungi, wings, sound waves, machines, and myths, never settling into one category for too long. Van Herpen seems equally uninterested in fixed classifications. \u201cI want to go through life discovering new stories and new ways of looking at life,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t hold onto sort of one truth or one belief.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses\u201d is on view at the Brooklyn Museum<\/a> through December 6, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walking into \u201cIris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses\u201d at the Brooklyn Museum, visitors first encounter the Seijaku dress…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,642,99,95576,90180,49154,90179,30959,9,24,63,95577],"class_list":["post-244749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-museum","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-eileen-gu","tag-imani-williford","tag-iris-van-herpen","tag-matthew-yokobosky","tag-met-gala","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-salvador-breed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}