Iris Van Herpen – Sculpting the Senses – Paris. A Review

Come with me as I review the wonderful Iris Van Herpen exhibition in Paris. It’s dramatically curated, generously credited, and full of dresses, artworks, and inspiration.

Iris Van Herpen is a designer from the Netherlands, who trained in ballet and briefly worked at Alexander McQueen’s studio after graduation before opening her own studio. Her work is inspired by dance and the natural world. The pieces are ethereal, otherworldly. Often made from layers of chiffon or other semi-transparent and transparent fabrics, they drift, jiggle and float around. Tendrils entwine arms and torsos. The effect is innovative and beautiful.

Her work is not, to me, reminiscent of anyone else’s in most cases. The skeleton dress, of course, was done (first? – certainly famously) by Elsa Schiaparelli in the 1930s. And some shoes are exactly the same shape as Alexander McQueen’s In fact, yes, she does have his inventiveness, plus interest in the natural world and technological methodologies in forming her garments. She does not have his crude shock value, nor basis in tailoring. This is different.

It is all perfectly fabricated. Videos show her teams at work, painstakingly bonding each layer of fabric and metal together.

Iris Van Herpen Paris Review

Each room follows a theme. There is Water and Dreams, Sensory Sea Life, Forces behind Forms, Skeletal Embodiment, Growth Systems, Synaesthasia, Alchemic Atelier, Cabinet of Curiosities, The Mythology of Fear, New Nature, and Cosmic Bloom. Many artworks are chosen to complement the works. Some, such as the ancient scientific manuscript showing the body in relationship to the planets and the engravings by the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel which illustrate the flora and fauna of the oceans, created 1899-1904, are citied as direct inspirations. Some others date from 2023 and therefore might well have been produced directly for the show, inspired by the given themes and not the other way around. But each are remarkably fitting.

Covering two floors at the Musee d’Arts Decoratif, the space is mainly blacked out, which allows for very specific lighting.Works are not just spotlit but caught in the lingering glare of roving lights, which serves to highlight different aspects of the garment. At other points the shadow of the garment is highlighted and looks just like a skilled paper cut out silhouette. But closely comparing the shadow silhouette to the actual dress, I thought some parts of it were moving while the dress itself was still. Could it be a projected animation? Very smart.

Visually Arresting

Iris Van Herpen exhibition Paris Review. At the Musée Des Arts Décoratif. Image Genevieve Jones.

Iris Van Herpen exhibition Paris Review. At the Musée Des Arts Décoratif. Image Genevieve Jones.

Iris Van Herpen exhibition Paris Review. At the Musée Des Arts Décoratif. Image Genevieve Jones.

Iris Van Herpen exhibition Paris Review. At the Musée Des Arts Décoratif. Image Genevieve Jones.

Iris Van Herpen exhibition Paris Review. At the Musée Des Arts Décoratif. Image Genevieve Jones.

The Natural World

There is a grinning, winged skeleton by Heishiro Ishino sitting alongside her Skeletal Embodiment works, as well as a beautiful arranged snake skeleton, loaned by the Collection Maison de Taxidermie Deyrolle, Paris. Kate McGuire’s works glow under the spotlight in the Cabinet of Curiosity room. I have come across her disquieting work before. Usually composed of the body parts of creatures, in this case luminescent feathers have been painstakingly arranged around a sinuous, yet neatly knotted form. It resembles a segment of python which has been arranged thus totemically, and yet it is feathered. But the effect is seamless and the feathers, replacing scales, don’t look out of place. The pieces remind us how close the designs of the natural world are to each other.

Other artworks from the natural world which cause a pang include two quite similar: one in which a queen bee is inserted into a man-made structure along with some worker bees. The workers build a hive around the queen inside the rather small perspex box, completely open to the light. But as they build, the artist turns the piece and they are forced to try and make honeycomb in a different direction. It seem cruel to manipulate and disorientate them this way.

Another piece is made when a tarantula spider is placed in a box with metal struts, and forced to live there and weave its web as best it may amongst them. These artworks remind me of the almost aimless experiments of 18th and 19th century scientists who would dissect live dogs or place birds in vacuum flasks to see what would happen. They might have the excuse of studying nature for “art” or “science” , but ironically they are very much disrupting nature.

Iris Van Herpen Paris Review – The Atelier

An “atelier” upstairs showing sketches, ideas pinned onto mini mannequins and specimens under microscopes is fun, even if somewhat fake. It allows the visitors a little interaction and breaks out of the dark, soundscaped space downstairs, which for me at least was beginning to feel a bit intense.  Next door a cabinet of curiosities showcases accessories, inspiring bits and bobs. There are animatronic props from her runway shows and films showing the catwalks themselves.

These clothes though are far more like artworks themselves than anything one can reasonably wear. For example, you couldn’t sit down in most of them. And they are universally modelled on the catwalk by very thin models, who don’t so much wear he garments as have them sitting on top of them. They do animate them when walking, which sets different parts waving and flowing, but this is calculated in the same way as the hidden motors integral to some pieces.

There is a wall featuring various fashion shoots of celebrities and models wearing the pieces. Anyone above a size minus zero looks, to be honest, ridiculous. You cannot pack any curves into this. It seems it does not work with a body, the body is irrelevant. Which is such a shame, and let’s face it, ironic, since the designer has so intensely studied natural processes, the cell structure of shells, the skeletons of snakes, etc. She could also have considered the natural beauty of a woman’s body.

Iris Van Herpen – Sculpting the Senses is at the Musée Des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France until April 28th, 2024. It is curated by Cloé Pitiot, the Associate Curator is Louise Curtis, and Mathurin Jonchères and Joffrey Picq assisted.

Related posts:

House Style at Chatsworth House – review Opera: Passion, Power and Politics review Designer of Dreams – V and A Dior exhibition Create The Look The Feminine Thirties Shoes:Pleasure and Pain:Review The history of makeup Pt 2 Erik Satie In 1920s fashion – Sports et Divertissements 1920s fabrics : From embroidered silks to printed flour sacks Sonia Rykiel Opus Anglicanum at the V and A Amazing 1960s Film Fashion Japanese designers – Rei Kawakubo  1920s designers – Jane Régny Frans Hals: The Male Portrait – review Review – 150 Years of the Royal School of Needlework: Crown to Catwalk

• Paris
• reviews