Science, art or haute couture? Dutch designer Iris van Herpen is known for her sculptural, futuristic garments that have been influenced by dance, architecture, the natural world, science and technology, and worn by the likes of Björk, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga.
Arriving in Australia direct from its Paris premiere at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses is a showcase of more than 170 items from Van Herpen’s career showing at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane from 29 June to 7 October.
Among the creations on display is the Heliosphere gown worn by Beyoncé for the Amsterdam leg of her 2023 Renaissance tour. Designed by Van Herpen and created by a team of 12, the garment features 980 laser-cut leaf-shaped outlines cast in silver-marbled silicone then hand-stitched on to a tulle minidress, along with Swarovski crystals. The “halo” collar is shaped from PETG, a semi-rigid polyester material.
For her 2010 Crystallization collection, also on display at the exhibition, Van Herpen was inspired by the “seemingly chaos to structured precision” of water, from its fluid, liquid state to its hard, “mathematical” crystal ice form.
The Water and Dreams room – one of nine in the exhibition – includes creations from Van Herpen’s 2016 Seijaku collection. The glass dress is sculpted from hand-blown glass bubbles, coated in a transparent silicone, which create a “bioluminescent prism around the body”.
The Shift Souls garments, from the 2019 collection of the same name, are designed to “smoke around the body in three dimensional ‘wave drawings’”, according to the designer’s website. The look was created with layers of dyed silk and frames of laser-cut mylar (a type of polyester film).
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Musician Grimes wore the Bene Gesserit gown – named after the powerful “Reverend Mothers” from Frank Herbert’s science-fantasy novel Dune – to the 2021 Met Gala. It is made from 26 metres of silk and took more than 900 hours to craft.
The spherical Epicycle dress, from the 2019 Hypnosis collection, creates an optical illusion – the layers of organza hoops appear to “wrap into each other infinitely”.