The Alchemist

Dutch designer Iris van Herpen uses the latest technology to create poetic collections inspired by everything from the depths of the ocean to the solar system

- Rosana Lai

From across the bridge, a jumble of sinister, inky snakes seemed to be writhing around the model, en-snaring her thin frame as she teetered on the edge of an Amsterdam canal. But she was not in any immediate danger of suffocation, because on closer inspection, the snakes were, in fact, folding acrylic tubes made to imitate a serpent—and also, according to the designer, to evoke the mental shape of confusion. Such is the poetic and sometimes unsettling power of an Iris van Herpen dress.

On a squally Monday morning I visited her atelier, located next to Amsterdam’s Centraal Station overlooking the IJ river and nestled in a nondescript building occupied by other fellow craftsmen like a piano maker. Based on her reputation for melding cutting-edge technology with traditional couture techniques, I had expected to see industrial fabric printers stationed everywhere, but there were no whirring machines in her brightly lit studio, just the quiet chatter of two assistants painstakingly glueing pieces of comma-shaped silicone onto tulle. The months immediately after a show are usually the calmest for Van Herpen, who recently vacationed in La Gomera in Tenerife to recharge. Dressed in a mohair jumper and black jeans, her long, slender face kept bare save for two dashes of eyeliner, she appears as willowy and unexpectedly beautiful as one of her dresses.