Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion
Iris van Herpen will exhibit her sculptural 3D designs in a first of its kind exhibition in the US at The High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
Showcasing her unique combination of traditional craftsmanship and futuristic techniques, Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion will bring to life an exceptional vision of fashion, design and innovation.
Co-organised with the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, the exhibition will feature 45 pieces carefully selected from 15 of van Herpen’s collections spanning over seven years from 2008 to 2015. A nod to innovation, Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion will also feature the world’s first examples of 3D-printed fashion, including her renowned and ground-breaking dress from her show Crystallisation (July 2010), which van Herpen explained resembled limestone deposits, water splashes and ice crystals. “I have always had the fascination to work with materials that I cannot control, like water or air or energy,” said van Herpen in an interview with the New York Times earlier this year.
Since 2006, van Herpen’s graduation collection Machine Jewellery showed us her inventiveness in material use and treatment. She visualises intangible elements and elusive concepts through her ludic compositions and inventive constructions, gaining international acclaim, and her work being worn by artists like Björk.
Another of these ludic compositions will include a world first flexible 3D-printed piece from her Voltage collection (January 2013), which gained its aesthetic from the effects of lightning and electricity as they traverse the body and nature. It was a noted collaboration with Neri Oxman and Julia Koerner who lead the Mediated Matter Group – a group that focuses on nature inspired design – at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Van Herpen’s Ice dress from her Magnetic Motions collection will also be exhibited. This piece is a stunning delicate transparent bodice shaped dress, which at the time of production, emphatically hallmarked van Herpen’s design creativity. From her Capriole collection (July 2011) we will see her ‘snake dress’, a dress composed of black acrylic sheets and constructed in serpentine forms that writhe. From Chemical Crows (January 2008), which was inspired by a group of crows living near van Herpen’s studio in Amsterdam, she will share three pieces made from umbrella ribs, crossing the line between fashion and art, in a display of golden ribs mimicking high Victorian collars and exaggerated shoulder pads and wings.
Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion will be an exhibition that won’t stay in idle, with music and videos from her multimedia runway shows set to permeate the space, adding to the intensity of her creativity. “Iris van Herpen’s work is an incredible fusion of artistic expression, craftsmanship and creativity,” said Sarah Schleuning, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at The High Museum of Art. “The marriage of traditional, handcrafted designs and 21st-century technology makes her work innovative, dynamic and a signifier of a bold, new future for fashion design.”
Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion will be on show at The High Museum of Art, Atlanta from Saturday 7 November 2015 to Sunday 15 May 2016. For van Herpen’s most recent collection, visit our coverage of Paris Fashion Week SS16.
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