Haute couture fashion design is a highly creative and intricate discipline. It features one-of-a-kind, often extravagant pieces that are hand-stitched and require extreme attention to detail. 

Dutch designer Iris van Herpen takes this craft to another level, combining traditional fashion design with innovative technology and other out-of-the-box processes. Her works often utilize parts that are 3D printed, then hand-sewn together. The results are jaw-dropping wearable sculptures that can only really be described as works of art.

Van Herpen studied fashion design at ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in the Netherlands and interned for Alexander McQueen in London. In 2011, Time magazine included her “Escapsim” 3D-printed dress in its “50 Best Inventions” annual feature. Her progressive creations have been worn by celebrities such as Cara Delevingne, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Björk. She is a guest member of the prestigious Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, which allows van Herpen a slot on the official catwalk schedule during Paris Couture Week. 

The 33-year old designer’s exhibition “Transforming Fashion” opens Saturday at the Phoenix Art Museum, and is the last U.S. stop on this North American tour, which concludes in Toronto. Organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, “Transforming Fashion” features more than 40 stunning ensembles, including one purchased by the Arizona Costume Institute, an organization that supports the Phoenix Art Museum’s fashion design department. 

Mark Wilson from the Groninger Museum was already working on a project with van Herpen and invited Sarah Schleuning, curator of decorative arts and design at the High Museum of Art, to come see her work. 

“We were really interested in trying to find a project that was really about ideas, about creativity, making and innovation,” Schleuning said. “Once I saw (her work) in person, I thought it was spectacular. … I really felt it would have so much impact and wanted to figure out how to bring it to Atlanta and also to America.” 

In 2012, the pair began putting together an exhibition that would introduce North American audiences to van Herpen’s designs and showcase her process. The garments will be organized very specifically in the Steele Gallery: Each piece will be placed around the perimeter of the room so they can be viewed individually. A collection of shoes and videos accompany the exhibit. Touch pieces are available so visitors can explore the various materials used to craft the garments. 

“The pieces take incredible craftsmanship and hours and hours of hand work,” Schleuning said. “It’s mind-blowing. … The touch materials are really great, and you can feel the heft of the material, the substance of it.”

A big deal for Phoenix

For the 50th anniversary of the Phoenix Art Museum’s fashion department in 2016, the Arizona Costume Institute decided to purchase a new piece for the museum’s archives. Dennita Sewell, fashion curator for the Phoenix Art Museum, attended a fashion conference in Europe in 2015. There she met van Herpen’s assistant, who invited her to Antwerp to see a piece called the “Eleventh” dress from the “Biopiracy” collection. 

“I was aware of it, absolutely, but it hadn’t come to my mind initially because I thought the group might want something a little more classical,” Sewell said. “I was so impressed and appreciative that they really wanted to go for it. It’s an expression that they want the things she embodies, which is a forward-thinking attitude.” 

The dress was showcased in a controversial show in Paris in 2014 where models were suspended and shrink-wrapped in cases, posing the question: “Are we still the sole proprietors of our bodies?” The “Eleventh” dress was the first dress van Herpen made that was fluid, not rigid like her previous garments. It was featured in a 2014 issue of National Geographic as part of a piece called “Just Press Print,” with notable ways that 3D printing is being used across industries. 

Sewell chose this particular dress because the material — TPU 92A-1 with a silicone coating — is similar to the sole of a sneaker and has been tested for its longevity, and also because it reminded her of a feathered dress.

And, it’s just a beautiful dress.

After the tour ends in Toronto, it will return to the Phoenix Art Museum. 

“It’s important for the museum to show artists that are at the top of their field,” she said. “It’s part of a cultural landscape of keeping our standards of exposing people here to great art.”

A collaborative effort 

While many might imagine that van Herpen works in a sleek, technologically savvy studio, Sewell said that’s not the case. Van Herpen actually collaborates with a number of various creatives in a number of disciplines, including architects, artists and scientists, including Philip Beesley, Jólan van der Wiel and Bart Hess, and bright minds from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the European Organization for Nuclear Research. 

“The thing to really remember about her is that her studio looks like a traditional couturier shop,” she said. “The 3D printing is done elsewhere. Iris sews together the parts and pieces, and her works are all combinations of different techniques — some traditional, some using technology, including 3D printing.”

Galina Mihaleva is the owner of Galina Couture in Scottsdale and a visiting assistant professor at Arizona State University teaching fashion construction and wearable technology. She and her students are thrilled that van Herpen is coming to the Phoenix Art Museum. 

“I admire her for her ability to be collaborative,” Mihaleva said. “None of her exhibits include purely individualistic works, and that is the future of fashion.”

Sewell said much of the van Herpen’s process has not only been pushing herself, but also her collaborators. She said the designer asks if something is possible, and when she is told it isn’t, she’ll just ask them to try.

“These technologies are pushing her ideas of materiality and giving her a new zone,” Sewell said. “It’s not like she orders the pieces and then they assemble the shoe. They really collaborate and work together, getting to know each other better.”

The collaborators will give van Herpen a run down of the materials, if they can be bent, sewed or stressed. And much of her work is trial and error. 

“She sort of gets pinned as the new tech person,” Schleuning said. “But it’s really about what is the best material and process for the idea. A lot of times she tries it many, many ways. … ‘Do I like this better when I 3D printed it? Or do I like hand-cut acrylic? Which looks better?’ She’ll spend days looking at it.” 

Fashion at another level

Van Herpen’s work isn’t the easiest to wrap your head around. Sewell has heard it all about van Herpen’s work:

• “I don’t get it.”
• “It doesn’t look wearable.” 
• “Is it fashion?”
• “Who wears that?” 
• “What’s the point?”

Sewell’s response points to the artform of couture itself. 

“Couture is where the most forward ideas are coming from,” she said. “When you look at fashion and technology and what’s coming out of research at universities, (it) is about ideas that aren’t that feasible or practical. Asking the question, doing research and testing the limit — those are things that become normal.” 

She points to other designers, including Paco Rabanne, whose collection “Twelve Unwearable Dresses” was groundbreaking in 1966, and even as far back as Paul Poiret, a master couturier who created a dress in the 1920s with an Eiffel Tower appliqué that lit up.

“Wearable technology has a much earlier history than you might think,” Sewell said. 

Emily Mushaben, 22, is a design-management student at Arizona State University and Phoenix Art Museum intern who has been working with Sewell. She said van Herpen’s work resonates with her generation. 

“People say her work is so futuristic, but my generation grew up with technology,” she said. “Pushing the boundaries is so natural to us, so when I saw her work, although it is incredible, it didn’t seem foreign.”

Because the exhibit is highly creative and embodies a number of techniques, it has wowed audiences beyond those with an interest in fashion. 

“It was interesting on tour because a certain portion of the institutions don’t have a fashion department,” Schleuning said. “It speaks to her work, how it really falls into so many categories. It’s not pigeon-holed into anything … and I’m always amazed and what people come in to to see the exhibit.”  

Sewell said the exhibit also promotes the STEAM educational approach, which stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and math. 

“The science and technology bring an engagement for a very wide range of people who will enjoy the show and get inspired by her creativity,” she said. “I think (the exhibit) will really inspire a sense of wonder.”

‘Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion’

When: Feb. 24-May 13. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesdays. Noon-5 p.m. Sundays. Closed Mondays.

Where: Phoenix Art Museum, 1625 N. Central Ave., Phoenix.

Admission: $5 for non-museum members, free for museum members. Museum admission required: $15-$18; $13 for students with ID; $9 for children ages 9 to 17; free for children ages 5 and younger, museum members and members of the military with ID.

Details: 602-257-1880, phxart.org.

MORE THINGS TO DO:

Festivals feature art, culture and an outdoors expo

8 bite-size theater reviews for Phoenix: ‘Outside Mullingar,’ ‘The Boob Show’ and more

25 biggest, upcoming events in Phoenix 2018

Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/2HAMPki