REX|LAB, 2015

Installation for the 2016 Iris van Herpen Spring Collection Show, Paris

Collaborating artists: Jolan van der Wiel, Marjan Colletti

Installation: REX|LAB. Exp. Arch., University of Innsbruck.
Robotic collaborators: Pavlos Fereos, Pedja Gavrilovic

For Spring/Summer 2016 Iris Van Herpen explores the powerful confluence of nature and architecture. Inspired by the living tree bridges in India, the designer executes a new approach to garment construction, mixing the techniques of cutting, weaving, folding and growing into a process that transcends the boundaries of traditional clothes-making.[…]
“The beautiful potential of plants and other organisms to form living architecture inspired me to make a collection that is tangled like a maze around the body. Inspiration came from the way plants and their roots grow, and how roots have been used to grow living bridges in the forests of India. This tradition of growing bridges inspired me to re-envision my process of making a garment.”
Central to the show Gwendoline Christie lies in a deep-time dream, wearing a circular dress, which is being woven upon her. The live process blends different techniques – lazer cutting, hand weaving and 3-D printing into one dress, which spreads from the centre, quaquaversal in its geometries.
Three ‘Beings’ move over the sleeping figure, their geological mineral landscape magnetically grown by the artist Jolan van der Wiel, weaving the dress in real time, interlacing an architectural mesh which rays out around her.
“Van Herpen’s work reveals the secret structures of our existence giving us a multidimensional experience of what it is to be alive, it is an investigation into the past, present and future in all its primal and mythological forms.”
Gwendoline Christie
In order to underscore the growth process inherent in living architecture and the installation, variations of lace were used as the key materials in the collection – a fine organic lace from Calais, a nude, graphic maze-like lace, iridescent changeant silver lace, leather lace embedded with Swarovski ceramic stones and glass-like transparent lace with square gems. The collection is executed in minimal colors – white, nude, grey, silver and black tones.
To complement the collection, the “airborne” shoes were developed in collaboration with Finsk. Their ultra-thin platform creates an illusion of the wearer being suspended above ground.

CREDIT LIST:

Press agent: Karla Otto |​Nicolas Delareu
Styling: Patti Wilson
Casting Director: Jess Hallett
Consultancy: Jerry Stafford

Make-up: M.A.C | ​Inge Grognard
Hair: TIGI |​ Maria Kovacs, Marco Lafrate
Music & sounds: Salvador Breed

Runway music: Excerpt of “Canto Ostinato Audio Visual” | Gwyneth Wentink, Wouter Snoei & Arnott Hulskamp


Collaborating artists: Jolan van der Wiel, Marjan Colletti

Installation: Rex Lab | University of Innsbruck for Experimental Archictecture
Pedja Gavrilovic, Pavlos Fereos

Show: 6up event production | Martin Cohen, Bruno Augusto Ramos
Showproduction: Bdifferent | Kim Vos, Diek Pothoven​ & Michelle den Hollander

Shoes in collaboration with Finsk London by Julia Finsk

Press release: Jerry Stafford & Eugene Rabkin

Installation photography: Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones
Frontstage Photography: Peter Stigter
Backstage Photography: Morgan O’Donovan
Video Registration: Fabrice Daville – Premices Films

Special Thanks to:
Gwendoline Christie

Swarovski­
Ets Lucien Noyon Et Cie
Akadamie van Kunsten
Stefano Martinetto & Tomorrow team