See every look from Iris van Herpen's spring 2023 couture collection:
Iris van Herpen has always gone against the grain, agitating against couture’s sometimes fusty culture and diversifying into science and technology as part of her process. Take her fall collection, which she unveiled in film format at a time when her peers are doubling down on flashbulb-heavy live events.
“It didn’t feel like I could really embody the emotional aspect that comes with this concept on the runway,” she explained, on a Zoom call from her studio in Amsterdam, before going on to reveal that the collection was intended to be worn underwater as a symbolic reference to female protest. “Partly, it’s an ode to the demonstrations in Iran, because I really believe that it’s a movement that we need to support globally,” she said.
The designer partnered with the similarly polymathic French dancer, choreographer, underwater film-maker, and freediver Julie Gautier on footage that showcases garments at the bottom of the Y-40 pool in Italy. At its time of construction, Y-40 was the deepest manmade pool in the world at 138 feet deep. It remains “a second home” for Gautier, who choreographed and stars in sequences that show van Herpen’s work in all its siren beauty while simultaneously loading it up with symbolism.
The film begins with a series of corseted looks that hug the body on a nude base, made up of van Herpen’s signature fluid forms traced in mylar. These develop into diaphanous gowns of organic silk and recycled polyester which undulate in the water like exotic jellyfish in shades of bruised purple and red.
Van Herpen is currently preparing 100 looks for a retrospective at Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs, opening in November 2023. It’s been a uniquely personal and emotional experience for the designer, who has spent the past three years poring over her archive in partnership with the museum’s curators. “It’s like a diary, an explosion of past and present,” she said.
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