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Dress

Design House Iris van Herpen Dutch
Designer Iris van Herpen Dutch
fall/winter 2012–13
Not on view
Recognized for her inventive sourcing and manipulation of materials as well as for her interdisciplinary collaborations with artists, architects, scientists, and engineers, Iris van Herpen has provided an innovative model for fashion in the twenty-first century. This ensemble from her “Hybrid Holism” presentation was inspired by her frequent collaborator Philip Beesley’s responsive architectural installation Hylozoic Ground (2010). Van Herpen riffed on the theory of hylozoism—the notion that all matter contains life—to imagine a future in which garments have the potential to emulate nature and evolve in responsive ways. Although the shiny strips of PVC that form the flexible outer shell of this garment are entirely synthetic, they effortlessly echo the biomorphic shapes that characterize the rest of the collection.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Dress
  • Design House: Iris van Herpen (Dutch, founded 2007)
  • Designer: Iris van Herpen (Dutch, born 1984)
  • Date: fall/winter 2012–13
  • Culture: Dutch
  • Medium: plastic (polyvinyl chloride), silk, metal
  • Credit Line: Gift of Iris van Herpen, in honor of Harold Koda, 2016
  • Object Number: 2016.185
  • Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute

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Dress, Iris van Herpen Dutch, plastic (polyurethane), cotton, metal (iron filings), Dutch
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Dress, Iris van Herpen Dutch, silicone, cotton, bone, metal, synthetic, glass, Dutch
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Dress, Iris van Herpen Dutch, plastic (epoxy-acrylate polymer), Dutch
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Ensemble, Iris van Herpen Dutch, a) Plastic (polyamide); b) leather, cotton, plastic (acrylic), metal, Dutch
Ensemble
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Ensemble, Iris van Herpen Dutch, (a, b) plastic (polyamide); (c, d) leather, plastic (acrylic), Dutch
Ensemble
Multiple artists/makers
fall/winter 2011–12

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