Shock Of The New

Lab-grown leather; 4-D-printed knits; dresses that take a whole year to make—Iris van Herpen takes Jamie Huckbody on a tour of the shape of things to come.

Let’s get one thing straight: Iris van Herpen is not a designer who only makes 3-D-printed dresses.

“There are so many misconceptions about my work,” says the 33-year-old, throwing her head back in laughter and revealing a face that is as enigmatic as the Renaissance beauties in her favourite Amsterdam hangout the Rijksmuseum. “Even specialist 3-D-printing websites— and you’d think they’d know what they’re talking about, right?—say every new collection is 3-D-printed. Three dimensional printing is only one element. In fact, a lot of the technology and innovation we do is in collaboration with other companies, so it’s all done at their place. My studio here is very much like a fashion atelier.”