Celebrities dressed by Iris Van Herpen

Thu 1 Aug 2024

Dutch fashion designer Iris Van Herpen’s restless curiosity has led her to collaborate with pioneering thinkers in the fields of architecture, dance, biology, physics and visual art. This trans-disciplinary ethos also characterises her relationship with her ‘muses’ — groundbreaking figures, such as Björk, Lady Gaga and Tilda Swinton — for whom she creates her Haute Couture.

DELVE DEEPER: Journey through ‘Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses’

Let us take you on a tour of some of the 130 garments and accessories you’ll see from across the designer’s career, arranged according to nine themes in ‘Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses’ at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) until 7 October 2024 — the exhibition having travelled to Brisbane from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, where it was one of the most well-attended shows in the museum’s 140 years.

Continuously pushing the boundaries of traditional fashion design, these visionary yet timeless gowns of van Herpen are a favorite among celebrities, worn on the red carpet. These unique garments customised to bring her clientele’s vision to life are also collected by museums.

Watch | Journey through ‘Sculpting the Senses’

Worn by celebrities

From the exhibition entrance, follow a journey from the deep sea to the outer reaches of the cosmos with spectacular gowns worn by Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, Céline Dion, Björk, Lorde, and Grimes; actors and models Gwendoline Christie, Scarlett Johansson, Hailee Steinfeld, Milla Jovovich, Janelle Monae, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Maisie Williams, Zoë Kravitz, Cara Delevingne, Fan Bingbing, Kate Moss, Winnie Harlow and Natalia Vodianova.

Worn by Chinese actor Fan Bingbing

Worn by Grimes in the music video ‘Violence’

Worn by Jennifer Lopez in her music video ‘In the Morning’

Worn by Lady Gaga promoting her album ‘Chromatica’

Worn by Lady Gaga promoting her album ‘Chromatica’

Based on the Capricorn Coast of central Queensland, artist Shelee Carruthers pours acrylic paint onto canvas to explore the organic nature of fluid art. Carruthers’s free-flowing creations and her affinity for coastal environments, including the Great Barrier Reef, interested Iris van Herpen and they collaborated on the ‘Sensory Seas’ collection 2020. Here, van Herpen has translated the purple and turquoise hues of one of Carruthers’s abstract paintings of ocean life into the sculptural Hydrozoa dress. Made from ‘waves’ of laser-cut PETG (a type of thermoplastic polyester) that have been heat-bonded to layers of digitally printed glass organza, the dress moves like a blue iridescent jellyfish riding an ocean current.

Worn by Björk performing her album ‘Biophilia’

Worn by actor Hailee Steinfeld at the Met Gala, 2021

Taking over 640 hours to complete, the Magnetosphere dress’s delicate vegetal forms are constructed from multiple layers of laser-cut lace made from upcycled ocean plastic and coastal debris. These layers are individually stitched to fluidly encircle the bodice, echoing Rogan Brown’s intricate papercut artworks, and embodying the cycle of life. Reflecting Iris van Herpen’s desire to live in symbiosis with nature, the dress is also a celebration of the transformation of waste materials into avant-garde, but sustainable, haute couture.

Worn by model Winnie Harlow at the Met Gala, 2021

From the ‘Earthrise’ collection, the Aerology jumpsuit is reminiscent of a bat skeleton, exposing a complex structural anatomy that is usually hidden to the human eye and translating it into intricate shapes that weave and whirl around the body. Requiring over 800 hours of labour to create, the pearlescent pattern is made from hand-cast silicone shapes that are hand-stitched onto laser-cut outlines and adorn a bodysuit in black stretch tulle. Like an infinitely delicate second skin, the ensemble appears at once graceful and turbulent, as, when worn, the cape recalls a whirlwind, cyclone or storm as it unfurls and swirls around the body.

The Aerology jumpsuit was worn by Winnie Harlow to the 2021 Met Gala in New York. Harlow is known for having depigmented patches on her skin caused by the autoimmune condition called vitiligo, and for her career as a trailblazing, outspoken fashion model.

Worn by singer–songwriter Lorde

Inspired by biologist Merlin Sheldrake’s book Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures (2020), the Entangled Life gown honours the beauty and ingenuity of the curious and wondrous world of fungi. An intricately embroidered bodice evokes filaments of mycelium in a subtle play of gold, burnt orange and raw sienna, while the hand-pleated blooming skirt echoes the gills of the underside of a mushroom in a rich shade of venetian red. As the body moves, so too do the ‘gills’ of the skirt, rippling organically to animate the dress.

Worn by singer and actor Ariana Grande

Worn by musician Grimes

Drawing inspiration from Frank Herbert’s bestselling and much-loved Dune (1965), the Bene Gesserit gown is named after the fictional sisterhood whose powerful members use physical and mental conditioning to nurture superhuman abilities, such as mind control and kinesis.

The dress is composed from silver liquid silicone with a mirror finish, with 3D silicone textures individually cast by hand. Numerous roots of gradient-dyed silk organza are interwoven into the silicone form of the dress and extend into a long, vaporous cape.

Iris van Herpen’s exquisite gown also highlights her involvement in one of the most anticipated events of the fashion calendar — the Met Gala, the annual fundraiser for the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Described by the designer as being ‘inspired by distant futures’, the gown was worn by musician Grimes in 2021, the year that Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s blockbuster Dune film was released.

Worn by actor Gwendoline Christie

Worn by supermodel Kate Moss

The Fractal Flows dress, a collaboration with artist Perry Hall, is based on the visualisation of soundwaves. Hall’s practice explores painting as a time-based medium, in which paint moves and transforms over time. He exploits natural dynamic forces — such as gravity, turbulence, magnetism and chemical reactions — in real-time improvisations. For this garment, Hall’s live-paintings of soundwaves were printed onto transparent glass organza. The patterned fabric was then cut into spheres, layered and heat-bonded onto laser-cut dendrites of black Komon Koubou (crepe de Chine). In motion, these dendrites vibrate and dance to create a fractal and rhythmic silhouette around the body.

Worn by model Winnie Harlow

Iris van Herpen created the Singularity jumpsuit with a collaborative team renowned for their cutting-edge biotechnologies applied to design, enabling the 3D-printing of organic materials such as algae or mycelium. Using these bioprocesses, this dramatic garment has been made from overstock silk organza in a rich shade of bronze, embellished with cacao bean shells that have been transformed into printable biopolymer filaments. These embellishments — adorning the thumbs, and encircling the arms, calves, bodice and neck — elevate the garment so that the wearer seemingly inhabits an otherworldly mythical realm. The Singularity jumpsuit was worn by Winnie Harlow to the 2022 British Fashion Awards in London.

Worn by singer Céline Dion

Watch | Iris van Herpen in conversation

‘Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses’ / Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) Brisbane / 29 June to 7 October 2024, across the ground floor in The Fairfax Gallery (1.1), Gallery 1.2, and the Eric and Marion Taylor Gallery (1.3).

The exhibition is co-organised by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris and QAGOMA, Brisbane, based on an original exhibition designed by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.