Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis: Iris van Herpen

Widely heralded as one of fashion’s most forward-thinking designers, Iris van Herpen has been pushing an interdisciplinary dialogue between Couture, nature, science, art, dance, and architecture. Merging these disciplines in unexpected ways, she creates an innovative synthesis of time-honored craftsmanship and pioneering technology.

After formative experiences with Alexander McQueen and Claudy Jongstra, Van Herpen founded her eponymous maison in Amsterdam in 2007. She broke through the traditional boundaries of Couture and, in 2011, became an official member of the exclusive Fédération de la Haute Couture in Paris, presenting her collections biannually during Paris Haute Couture Week.

The year 2010 marked a turning point in her career: she unveiled her first 3D-printed dress from the Crystallization collection, after which the Groninger Museum devoted its first major traveling exhibition to her work. Van Herpen’s Couture has since become a permanent fixture in the museum landscape, with her designs held in the collections of world-leading institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

Iris van Herpen conceives her designs as a cross-pollination of various fields: art, chemistry, dance, physics, architecture, and biology. In her eyes, Haute Couture is a transformative force that transcends boundaries and unites these diverse domains. With a background in dance, she maintains a deep connection to the physicality of the body — its strength, transformation, and ability to express emotion. There is a kineticism inherent in her work; the fluidity of her craftsmanship emits a vibration and energy that makes her designs feel alive.

Collaboration lies at the core of her creative process. Each collection emerges through dialogue with architects, scientists, choreographers, and artists; including Björk, Marina Abramović, Kim Keever, Studio Drift, Tilda Swinton, CERN, Nick Knight, Neri Oxman, and Damien Jalet. These symbiotic exchanges continually expand the boundaries of what Couture can be: a fusion of science, art, and movement.

Today, Iris van Herpen is internationally recognized as one of the most remarkable and innovative female artists of her generation, earning numerous honors including the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, the ANDAM Fashion Award, and the Vermeer Award. TIME Magazine named her 3D-printed designs among the “50 Best Inventions of 2011.”

In 2023, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris inaugurated Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses, a major retrospective celebrating her impact on art and innovation. The exhibition has since toured internationally, from Brisbane and Singapore to its current showing at the Kunsthal Rotterdam, and will continue to the United States, opening at the Brooklyn Museum in spring 2026.

The award-winning creator and organizer of Fashion Week in New York and cities across the globe, Fern Mallis has been an industry game changer in the world of fashion and design for more than 35 years. A former senior vice president of IMG Fashion and executive director of CFDA, she is the author of Fashion Lives: Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis, published by Rizzoli, which features no-holds-barred interviews, combined with never-before-seen personal photographs from interviewees such as Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Tommy Hilfiger, Betsey Johnson, Polly Mellen, Bruce Weber and more. She is currently the president of her own leading international fashion and design consultancy, Fern Mallis LLC.