Iris van Herpen Fall/Winter 2017 Haute Couture Review

     For her tenth anniversary, Iris van Herpen once again showed a new way forward for haute couture, combining scientific techniques with traditional craftsmanship. Van Herpen has always been inspired to do the impossible, and create things that exist only in her imagination until she puts in thousands of hours of work to make them possible. This collection, entitled “Aeriform”, focuses on the physical properties of air. Biomorphic shapes and constructions always appear in van Herpen’s collections, because of her obsession with nature and how she interprets natural properties into garments. While in open air, these clothes dance and appear to float.

     Similarly, live music was played during the runway presentation into open air by musicians who were totally submerged underwater. So the difference between water and air, emptiness and overflowing, were at play. The clothes themselves seemed to be made some a substance in between. The fabric flowed in rivets like water, but seemed light as air. Clothes like these are constructed on a micro scale. Every metal strand of fabric had to be placed right to shape. These metal strands were all biomimetrically processed, stretched, and hand sewn to create the desired texture. Even though the ideas are looking to the future for inspiration and the ideas are very conceptual, the garments are still traditional enough to be grounded in reality.  Especially with this collection, the pieces have an ease and wearability you don’t always get with van Herpen’s work. The flowing gowns are regal and have parallels to the masters of haute couture that have come before, like Cristóbal Balenciaga, Paco Rabanne, and Hussien Chalayan.

    Thankfully, there isn’t too much referencing to the past, which is something all too common in today’s haute couture. Van Herpen is actually creating something totally new because she draws her inspirations from science, unlike any of her contemporaries. Articulating scientific properties and elements of nature, like gravity, air, water, or sound into clothing sends Iris van Herpen down a fruitful course. Especially because haute couture was always meant to be the place where garments were experimented on and where ideas were born. Iris van Herpen has certainly done what she is supposed to do as a couture designer, and a decade of working has created some of the most advanced technical feats of any fashion designer in history. The next decade of van Herpen should be just as exciting and stimulating, if not more so, with new ideas bursting fourth.

Photo Credits: VogueRunway.com