If you ever tried diving or snorkeling, you know that underwater there is a blissful silence that, though scary, is also incredibly fascinating and soothing.
It must have been challenging to recreate that same feeling on a runway, but Iris Van Herpen did her best yesterday in Paris during her Haute Couture show.
She did it by plunging the space in darkness and placing around the venue water tanks large enough to contain a human being.
There weren't indeed any fish in the tanks, but the members of Danish underwater group Between Music, crouched inside them with their custom-built steampunk instruments.
Just like Van Herpen worked with scientists and architects, Between Music collaborated with deep sea divers, physicists and neuroscientists to develop a hypnotic biophonic sound.
The band provided therefore the rather eerie and subtly disturbing soundtrack to the show, with the members emerging out of the water every now and then to get some air.
Air and water, impalpable and fluid elements, were the main inspirations for Van Herpen's A/W 17 collection, very aptly entitled "Aeriform".
Everything in her new eighteen designs, each of them characterised by elaborate silhouettes, seemed poetically impalpable: the opening gowns featured for example a white or black Mylar soundwave-like pattern over-imposed and bonded on tulle.
In some of the pieces Van Herpen relaunched the same techniques she applied to her S/S 17 and the A/W 2016 collections.
In the former the interplay between shadow and light inspired long gowns in expandable laser-cut Mylar, leather and hand-pleated organza.
In the latter she printed straight black and white lines on organza and then pleated the material to create wave patterns.
These techniques were reworked for this collection and allowed the designer to create rippled motifs to examine (as she stated in the press release) "the nature and anatomy of air and the idea of airborne materiality and lightness, creating negative and positive space with shadow and light".
The designer also played with volumes and translucent layering: silver or black stretch fabrics were for example laser-cut to form more undulating and luminescent effects or patterns that replicated the gills of a fish.
The aquatic theme was also clear in the jellyfish-like hairstyles and in the heat-bonded gowns that waved gently and softly as the models walked around the runway space.
The final numbers were show stopping pieces in which pliable metal was turned into a three-dimensional floral pattern.
Underwater drama at times prevailed, but, if you carefully study the close-ups by photographer Morgan O'Donovan showing the intricate details and hand-pleated, printed and braided materials employed to construct these designs, you will easily realise that one strong component of Van Herpen's creations remains architecture.
The liquid silvery strips forming some of her designs could indeed be compared to the cables of suspension bridges à la Calatrava; the thin metal that formed floral configurations that could be interpreted as the romantic version of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes were actually developed by Van Herpen in collaboration with Canadian architect Philip Beesley and a final architectural touch was added by the suede shoes with a parametric 3-D-printed heel.
The show marked the 10th anniversary of Iris van Herpen's fashion house and of her avant-garde technological designs. Though astonishing and featured in many museum exhibitions, Van Herpen's designs haven't managed to convince more traditional fashion critics who state it is hard to imagine her creations in our closets.
Yet, at least Van Herpen has so far found new ways to make us dream, providing us with a vision of a future in which a fashion designer can freely experiment with architects, scientists, and engineers and combine technology with traditional craftsmanship (besides, she is not forcing us into buying her next overpriced collaboration with another brand mainly consisting in a T-shirt and an oversized hoodie as other brands are doing…).
Clearly on a mission to bridge fashion and science, Van Herpen may be among the very few designers of our times who will be remembered in fashion history books as a pioneer who genuinely broke the boundaries between couture and technology.
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