Fashioning Self: Extreme Organicism with Iris van Herpen

While fireworks were taking center stage in the United States on Monday, the Paris Fashion Week haute couture presentations got underway in the city of lights, and Dutch designer Iris van Herpen electrified onlookers with her latest collection of extreme organicism and what she calls 'escapism couture'. In an attempt to explore emotion, optimal tension, and movement, these latest designs are about creating performative value in design and the spirit of adornment rather than a 'form follows function' luxury.

This art/fashion wunderkind might seem out of this world to some, but she is hitting a real nerve in terms of where we might be headed on the make-it-new technological fashion frontier. Her time as an intern with designer Alexander McQueen and felter Claudy Jongstra

permeates her haunting sculptural creations, but van Herpen is further plumbing the depths and inner folds of our fragile psyches in order to map out new boundaries for fashioning self and identity.

"Iris van Herpen stands for a reciprocity between craftsmanship and innovation in technique and materials. She creates a new direction for couture that combines fine handwork techniques with futuristic digital technology. The essence of van Herpen is to express the character and emotions of an unique
woman and to extend the shape of the feminine body in detail. She mixes craftsmanship – using old and forgotten techniques with
innovation and materials inspired by the world to come." 

– quote via the designer's website

Iris Van Herpen AW 2011-2012 Haute Couture fashion collection 

 (photos: Francois Mori / AP)