Biopiracy at Iris Van Herpen

Vacuum packed models floating in space while a girl in a 3D printed silicone dress made of small bouncing jellyfish strides by.

I am a fan of Iris’s combination of high art , handcraft and technology . The clothes presented on tuesday during her fall/winter 2014 show in Paris were also a mix : of new fabrics and plastic ,  of the real and artificial , of opals and embroidery , fake furs and leathers printed like shark skin and ray.

There is something so refreshingly bold , raw and radical in her clothes and her vision. Nowadays when certain big houses want luxury goods to become even more “unique” , for the 0.01 % of the population , they just hitch up the prices so that the few that will be able to pay those prices think they have something unique that nobody else can afford to have . Whereas Iris’s Van Herpen’s uniqueness comes in the shape of clothes that  demonstrate fashion as art.  Her creations are clear artistic statements through which women can express their unique character.

I am sure that the stunning shoes by United  Nude will appear in the next Hunger Games film as I wrote in my post here on film costumer Trish Summerville’s collaboration with Iris Van Herpen.

This is the press release of Biopiracy :

In a society, where boundaries between private and public are porous, enquiries surrounding the ownership of one’s own body have grown.

In the recent past, patents on our genes have been purchased. Are we still the sole proprietor of our bodies?

From this question arises a sense of arrested freedom in one’s most intimate, solitary state.

A mix of ready-to-wear and couture pieces is presented with artist Lawrence Malstaf -who specializes in the interaction between biology and physicality.

Models float in the air, embryonic, seemingly weightless and in a meditative suspended animation.

Metamorphosis is suggested through intricate enmeshing of materials. Imprisoned fire opal beads gleam through lacerated weaves, artificial fibers compose voluminous, architectural structures, the organic ripple of light on water.

A 3D printing collaboration with Julia Koerner fuses the artisanal with the technical to create a kinetic dress which dances as it amplifies bodily movement. Molded boots in collaboration with United Nude accelerate and reconfigure the silhouette.

and these are a couple of bad shots I took during rehearsals that show the shoes in all their splendor

My sister Sylvia commented below that it reminds her of  ‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’ a 1913 bronze by Umberto Boccioni. She is right !  here it is below.

and here is the whole show on video