After seeing Iris Van Herpen’s grandiose skeleton dress on Mila Jovovich for the Chanel Little Black Jacket exhibit, we could not miss out on the opportunity to highlight the rest of the opulent collection.

With the presentation of her fall-winter 2012 collection during Paris couture week Iris van Herpen proved that couture is really a platform for creativity. She keeps testing the limits with her creations, and no one on day one of the three-day-long couture calendar came anywhere near to pushing the envelope as far as Iris van Herpen. Influenced by the current global wave of change and the need to inject new blood into today’s design world, Paris, the then nourishing capital of elitism and the old, well-established ‘maisons de la mode’, starts its mini-revolution through embracing new talent in its prestigious fashion rendez-vous, but also allowing open-door policy during the last day of its shows.

Iris Van Herpen, age 27 was born in Netherlands.  She graduated from the prominent fashion school ARTEZ (Arnhem) with a Fashion Design degree and then carried out internships withClaudy Jongstra and Alexander McQueen – of whom the influences are apparent in her style and techniques.  Her creational distinction is that she manages to create a unique type of couture that combines the qualities of hand-worked materials with the sublime effects of digital technology. In her latest collection Capriole, the designer presented five architectural looks, which she developed using this combined technique.

Particularly, she worked with the architect Isaie Bloch and MGX in making 3D prints, which were then mixed with fabric materials producing this startling result. The essence of Iris Van Herpen’s work relies upon her need to highlight the contradiction between beauty and regeneration: it makes her unique way to express the human individuality.

“For me fashion is an expression of art that is very close related to me and to my body. I see it as an expression of identity combined with desire, moods and cultural setting.” -Iris Van Herpen

Her debut collection on the couture fashion scene was not only popular and hysterically acclaimed, but could be also regarded as a symbolic shift of perspective in the fashion world. It seems that the traditional couture establishment finally starts to embrace something new. In Herpen’s terms, this means futurism, new materials and new fashion techniques, as rapid prototyping, the use of plastic and rubber -  in order to achieve a brand new poetry of costume.

As the Washington post states;  ‘No other designer on day one of the three-day-long couture calendar came anywhere near to pushing the envelope as far as Iris Van Herpen’.

Meet Mynxii White

Mynxii White has written 48 articles for Noir.

Mynxii White is an artist; the human face her canvas. Consider cosmetics as an art form. Likes icecream and the colour Pink.

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