Radical Softness<\/strong><\/a>, the exhibition lands with force through its attention to touch and interdependence. Its strength comes from the patient labor behind each piece, where handwork, technology, and natural systems are held in active exchange.<\/p>\n![\"iris](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/iris-van-herpen-sculptuing-senses-brooklyn-museum-designboom-01.jpg\")
Henosis Dress, \u2018Roots of Rebirth\u2019 collection, 2021, Iris Van Herpen Atelier. all images \u00a9 designboom<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
from the microscopic world toward the macroscopic<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Brooklyn Museum\u2019s Iris Van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses is organized by the natural themes from which the Dutch designer draws her inspiration. It opens with water, which she describes as \u2018the origin of life\u2019. \u2018It\u2019s the most vital material that we have on our planet,\u2019 she notes. <\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
From there, the galleries move from the microscopic world toward the macroscopic, building a sequence that links cellular life, marine structures, anatomy, consciousness, and planetary scale. This movement gives the show a loose rhythm of expansion, with each room enlarging the body\u2019s sense of where design can begin.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is where Iris Van Herpen feels especially aligned with the theme of Radical Softness.<\/strong> Her work treats the body as part of a larger ecology, shaped by water, air, sound, dreams, and mineral growth. \u2018The essence of my work is about finding that deeper connection with nature,\u2019 she continues,<\/strong> \u2018and feeling like we are a part of something much bigger, like the interconnectedness of all the layers of life.\u2019<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The garments translate that thought without heavy explanation. They hover around the figure, branch across the torso, lift away from the skin, and suggest that dressing can be an act of sensing one\u2019s place inside a wider field.<\/p>\n
![\"iris](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/iris-van-herpen-sculptuing-senses-brooklyn-museum-designboom-02.jpg\")
Seijaku Dress, from \u2018Seijaku\u2019 collection, 2016, Iris Van Herpen Atelier<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Couture as a state of attention<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Across the exhibition, Van Herpen\u2019s silhouettes appear almost weightless, yet the processes behind them are intensely physical. During the walkthrough, she spoke about beginning with material before silhouette.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018When I start working on a collection, I often start working on the materials first,\u2019 she explains.<\/strong> \u2018Before I even start thinking about silhouette or movement, I start from the material.\u2019 That order matters, as the garments feel grown from material behavior, with their forms emerging through bending, layering, cutting, stitching, and digital translation.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Brooklyn Museum presentation includes more than 140 haute couture creations shown alongside contemporary art, design objects, scientific artifacts, and natural history specimens, including coral, fossils, and skeletons.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The show also includes an evocation of Van Herpen\u2019s atelier, opening up the tactile side of couture creation within a broader exhibition about science and the body in space. Here, material studies and swatches backdrop physical scale models, and visitors are invited to peer through microscopes to take a close look at the designer\u2019s otherworldly inspirations for themselves.<\/p>\n
![\"iris](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/iris-van-herpen-sculptuing-senses-brooklyn-museum-designboom-03.jpg\")
Skeleton Dress, from the \u2018Capriole\u2019 collection, 2011, Iris Van Herpen Atelier<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Handwork and time<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Van Herpen\u2019s process brings older couture techniques into contact with digital tools, new materials, and experimental fabrication. She spoke about the history of handcraft with real affection, describing couture as an evolving language. For her, historic techniques gain new energy when they meet present-day tools and materials. The dialogue gives couture a sense of continuation, where skill moves forward through use.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
That idea came through most directly when she described handwork as a meditative state. \u2018I create my best work when I\u2019m doing handcraft myself,\u2019 she says.<\/strong> \u2018It works really well when I\u2019m in the process of making because time slows down and you get a clearer mind.\u2019<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the galleries, that slowing is visible in the surfaces. Some pieces carry the precision of scientific imaging, while others seem shaped by breath or current. The softness here is disciplined, built through repetition and attention instead of looseness.<\/p>\n
![\"iris](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/iris-van-herpen-sculptuing-senses-brooklyn-museum-designboom-04.jpg\")
R-Evoluzione, 2014, Enrico Ferrarini (left). Bene Gesserit Gown, custom look for Grimes, 2021, Iris Van Herpen Atelier (right)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dreaming as a design tool<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The exhibition also traces Van Herpen\u2019s interest in altered perception. She spoke about meditation, lucid dreaming, hypnosis, and a light form of synesthesia, where music can appear to her as pattern. Those experiences enter the work as practical design tools.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I use lucid dreaming as a tool to explore patterns that I translate into garments later,\u2019 she tells us.<\/strong> In that sense, the dream is handled with studio rigor. It becomes a way to test movement, surface, and structure before they enter material form.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
This gives Iris Van Herpen\u2019s work a particular intimacy. The garments may rely on advanced fabrication, yet they often begin with interior experience: a sound seen as pattern, a dream remembered as movement, a material handled until it starts suggesting its own direction. The exhibition\u2019s soundscape by Salvador Breed<\/strong><\/a> deepens that field as it surrounds the garments with a sensory layer that makes perception part of the display.<\/p>\n![\"iris](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/iris-van-herpen-sculptuing-senses-brooklyn-museum-designboom-05.jpg\")
Hydrozoa Dress, \u2018Sensory Seas\u2019 collection, 2020 (left). Arachne Bodice, \u2018Meta Morphism\u2019 collection, 2022 (right), Iris Van Herpen Atelier<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
From sketch to file to garment<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Van Herpen also described the technical path behind the complex patterning. The studio often begins with a physical, full-scale sketch on a base dress. That sketch is then translated into computer files, especially when embroidery needs to become a technical pattern. From there, she can digitally adjust the surface and silhouette. The process moves back and forth between hand and screen, keeping the body present even as the garment passes through software.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
This back-and-forth is one of the exhibition\u2019s most compelling design lessons. Technology appears here as a way to extend touch, instead of replacing it. Digital tools help carry a hand-drawn or physically modeled gesture into a complex surface. The final pieces hold traces of both methods, with the precision of computation and the sensitivity of couture sharing the same edge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iris Van Herpen Brings Living Systems Into Couture \u00a0 Iris Van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses brings the Dutch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,366,18,117,966,43533,19,17,47848,205979,7601],"class_list":{"0":"post-480027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-exhibitions","16":"tag-fashion-design-phenomena","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-iris-van-herpen","20":"tag-radical-softness","21":"tag-sculpture"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116558770799124401","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}