Iris Van Herpen

HAUTE COUTURE SS23

FEBRUARY 2023

Text:
Mera Charles

Iris van Herpen has never been one to conform, always challenging the staid culture of couture and expanding into science and technology in her creative process. For her latest collection, she broke convention yet again by presenting it in a film format instead of the usual runway show. According to van Herpen, the collection was meant to be worn underwater as a symbolic reference to female protest. In collaboration with French dancer, choreographer, and underwater filmmaker Julie Gautier, the film showcases van Herpen's designs at the bottom of Y-40, the deepest manmade pool in the world at 138 feet deep, as Gautier performs sequences that give deeper meaning to the pieces.

The film opens with corseted looks that hug the body on a nude base, consisting of van Herpen's signature fluid forms traced in mylar. The designs then evolve into diaphanous gowns of organic silk and recycled polyester in shades of bruised purple and red, which undulate in the water like exotic jellyfish. The most poignant moment of the film occurs around the three-minute mark when Gautier, wearing a corset adorned with streams of bright-red human and synthetic hair, begins screaming. Her pain elicits only a silent stream of bubbles, and she is eventually forced to surface to breathe.

Van Herpen is currently preparing for a retrospective at Paris's Musée des Arts Décoratifs in November 2023, featuring 100 looks from her archive. For the designer, the exhibition is a personal and emotional experience, akin to a diary of past and present. Although the exhibition will acknowledge van Herpen's unique place in fashion, she hopes her latest collection will also remind viewers of the brave female protestors fighting for their lives across the world. For van Herpen, fashion is a personal way to express identity, culture, and values, and it is crucial to show people the wider perspective.