CARTE BLANCHE

SPRING-SUMMER 2023 HAUTE COUTURE COLLECTION

23 - 27 JANUARY 2023

At the maison of Iris van Herpen, Haute Couture is a transformative force that transcends boundaries and unites multi-disciplinary technologies with intricate artisanal craftsmanship. The brand's visionary creations merge pioneering techniques and luxurious materials, often evoking a sense of avant-garde wonder. Whether shaping a dress through electromagnetic weaving or sculpting one from 3D hand-cast transparent leather, the maison challenges traditional notions of the handmade to create ethereal garments that are radically future-facing and exquisitely feminine. Founded in 2007, the brand showcases its collections bi-annually at the exclusive Paris Haute Couture Week as a member of the Fédération de la Haute Couture. The maison's ambition to reinvent the métier as the engine of innovation, pushing forward sustainability as second nature and materiality is mirrored in its inter-disciplinary approach to art and fashion. Each collection is a quest to venture beyond today's definition of a garment, exploring new forms of expression for a more meaningful, diverse and conscious fashion for the future. ...

Celebrating female empowerment, the maison values a collaborative design process with inspirational women such as the brand's cherished global clientele and extraordinary muses like Cate Blanchett, Beyoncé, Scarlett Johansson, Lady Gaga, Fan Bingbing and Naomi Campbell. Bespoke designs are meticulously crafted for an international clientage from within the illustrious Haute Couture atelier. Organic, innovative femininity is expressed through state-of-the-art Couture that embraces individuality powerfully and fearlessly. Through symbiotic collaborations with artists from all stripes such as the choreographer Damien Jalet, the performative artist Björk, the kinetic artist Anthony Howe, the trans-disciplinary architect Philip Beesley or the computational artist Neri Oxman the brand challenges the future of fashion by rethinking previously unimaginable ways of Haute Couture.


At Iris van Herpen, each creation is supported by the pillars that uphold the brand — nature, architecture, art, and dance. A sense of organic presence that emerges from the lightness and movement of texture is at the core of the garment. The maison draws stimulus from the natural world, its fragility and possibilities, from symbiosis to sound waves, synesthesia to the subterranean. Threads of inspiration derive from biomimicry or brain neurones, from climates or cymatics. Celebrated subjects arise from flight, are found in fungi or delve into the depths of the deep sea0 trenches. Constantly driving to evolve from the previous collection, the designs seek the unknown and aim to visualise the imperceptible inspiration behind them.

The atelier is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where new techniques are being born and cultivated, Couture is meticulously crafted and garments are individually named. The Art of Haute Couture by Iris van Herpen stands for slow fashion, designing in a thoughtful and collaborative manner, utilising approaches that are current, and paving the way for multi-disciplinary designs that extend the imagination.


“Fashion is an instrument for change, to shift us emotionally. Through biomimicry, I look at the forces behind the forms in nature, these patterns and natural cycles are my guide to explore new forms of femininity for a more conscious and sustainable fashion for the future.”

- Iris van Herpen