Iris Van Herpen has delighted us with a fashion show inspired by a future of aquatic architecture and bionic advancements.
Paris Haute Couture Week is here, and Iris Van Herpen is capturing the fashion world’s attention with a legion of ingenious creations for Autumn 2023, inspired by “aquatic architecture” and “bionic innovations.” The haute couture collection, titled “Architectonica,” looks towards a future of floating cities and pioneering design to create an alternative uniform for humans inhabiting both land and sea.
Van Herpen’s vision board began with the philosophies of French architect and oceanographer Jacques Rougerie, whose research merges the worlds of scientific discovery and architectural innovation. Commonly known as the “Architect of the Sea,” Rougerie boasts a portfolio of designs for underwater habitats and floating laboratories, both of which serve as ideal settings for many of Van Herpen’s designs to live and work.
The designer’s looks fall into a new category called “water urbanism.” Many of them appear stylistically levitating, while others are more informed by gravity, but for all of them, there is a sense of fluidity that underlines their construction. In addition to this otherworldly style vision, Van Herpen enlisted the future-minded brand SCRY for a range of fantasy footwear that once again appears adaptable to the environments.
Alongside Rougerie’s advancements, Van Herpen cites her sources in the world’s first floating city, “Oceanix,” currently under construction in South Korea. The water-based destination, designed by architect Bjarke Ingels, will operate on circular and closed-loop water systems, offering coastal habitat regeneration.
In the collection, this mood board manifests through a series of dynamic pieces, many of which encompass vivid patterns that move in tandem with the human form. In an effort to “blur the boundary between fashion and floating architecture,” Van Herpen creates new haute couture techniques to highlight physiological, behavioral, and structural adaptations of organisms through fashion.
Among them, the “biophilic” technique involves laser-cutting molds and injecting marble-textured silicone into fabrics to create an iridescent shell-like appearance. Additionally, the “Oceanix” process sees graphic polygon patterns carefully exploding while balanced on thin fiberglass rods that distribute precise weights across the moving body; and the “Sensorama” technique includes water jet cutting and hand-folding 0.7mm brass into 3D fractal mineral formations.
Here, Iris Van Herpen remains a pioneering visionary in haute couture, and her Autumn 2023 collection is more than ready to dress humanity for an aquatic frontier in the future. See the collection in the gallery above.
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