Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen is one of the biggest names in fashion you may still not have heard of. Her work is typified by its use of technology to create seemingly impossible patterns and silhouettes using materials, including metal, some designers wouldn’t dare to attempt to bend to their will in such unique ways.
Some of van Herpen’s celebrity clientele has included Scarlett Johannson (for the science fiction film Lucy), Björk, Cate Blanchett, and Cara Delevingne (who starred in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets).
Her latest collection is called ‘Hypnosis.’ Here’s how her team describes the collection:
“For this collection, the designer found inspiration in the hypnotic manifolds within our ecologies through the work of American artist Anthony Howe. The three-dimensional cyclical harmony of Howe’s kinetic sculptures is the wind beneath the wings of this collection. Howe’s spherical ‘Omniverse’ sculpture explores our relationship with nature and intertwines with infinite expansion and contraction, expressing a universal life cycle. The meditative movement of the ‘Omniverse’ serves as a portal for the collection and the models, encircling a state of hypnosis.”
“The collaboration with Howe evolves ‘in an ecstasy of attentiveness’ through the symbiosis of all the elements of nature that are dependent on each other. As one of the key pieces of the collection, the finale ‘Infinity’ dress comes alive on the breath of a finely balanced mechanism. An engineered skeleton of aluminium, stainless steel and bearings is embroidered with a delicate layering of feathers in cyclical flight; revolving around their own centre. ‘Hypnosis’ reflects the beauty and complexity of our environment, exploring the patterns and structures within its fragile landscape.”
Cover image via Iris van Herpen