There’s a certain da Vinci–level drama when art collides with engineering and science—and the Iris van Herpen exhibit at Singapore’s ArtScience Museum showcased it expertly. Each dress was curated to highlight form, inspiration, and construction. You might find yourself looking at an Iris van Herpen couture piece and thinking a dozen things at once: “That’s beautiful! How did she make it? Could anyone actually wear that? Is it supposed to look like a skeleton?”

The answers to those questions are: She made it by using a special 3D modeling tool for the design and then crafting it out of laser-cut mesh and plexiglass. Yes, someone could wear it — ideally, someone ready to walk down a runway. And yes, it’s supposed to look like a skeleton (or, perhaps, a skeleton with feathers).

Who is Iris van Herpen?

For those not up on your fashion icons (like me), van Herpen is a Dutch designer renowned for her groundbreaking work in haute couture. She blends traditional craftsmanship with cutting-edge technology, collaborating with 3D printing studios, architects, and engineers. And she often draws on elements in the natural world for inspiration. The result? Designs that blur the boundaries between fashion, sculpture, and science. Let’s look at where those worlds collide.

Iris Van Herpen Couture: Where Innovation Meets Elegance

An art school graduate who’s interned with the likes of Alexander McQueen, van Herpen launched her own fashion label in 2007. But is it fair to call all of this fashion? For starters, if we define fashion loosely as “what someone might wear,” then many of her pieces definitely qualify.

Indeed, major celebrities have worn van Herpen pieces, including Lady Gaga …

… Scarlett Johansson…

…and Arianna Grande.

If fashion is defined as, “clothing one makes in an atelier,” then van Herpen’s work also meets the definition. The ArtScience exhibit featured mock-ups and preliminary works …

… as well as a spread from her Amsterdam atelier to show you how she develops her ideas.

So yes, van Herpen is clearly a fashion designer. But it’s worth noting: all of the celebrity-worn dresses above were styled for editorial shoots—not for walking down the street or attending a Christmas party. Would I actually wear any of her pieces — let’s say, if I were magically invited to the Met Gala? Maybe. I could see wearing something like this …

… or even this:

But I can’t say that for all of her work. The “Frozen Falls” dress, for example, would pose certain obvious challenges (like breathing):

So is “fashion” the right word for these pieces? Or are we actually talking about art?

Sculpture: Where Fashion Transcends Form

You could see yourself enjoying an evening in many van Herpen dresses. But this one? You can likely imagine yourself stabbing someone by accident the minute you walked in the door (if you could get through the door in the first place).

At this point, it feels like fashion has moved into another arena: sculptural art. Indeed, the exhibit devotes significant time and space to showcasing van Herpen’s artistic collaborations with visual artists. For instance, she developed her “Singularity Jumpsuit” alongside artist Kim Keever, who makes photographs that explode with color …

… and she created her “Magnetosphere” and “Emperyan” dresses in collaboration with paper artist Rowan Brown.

For her “Henosis” dress, van Herpen worked even more directly with artist Casey Curran — he designed the kinetic crown.

When the museum presented her work, the curators displayed some of van Herpen’s more sculptural dresses next to artworks that echo their forms or concepts, such as this dress and Aggregation 24-FE010 by Korean artist Chun Kwang Young:

But van Herpen’s work isn’t just sculptural in terms of its inspiration — it’s also sculptural in terms of materials, too. She’s working in all sorts of cutting edge media (at some point, you just can’t call stuff “fabric” anymore). Take, for example, the “Foliage” dress, developed in collaboration with the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and 3D printing company Stratasys. Using something called “PolyJet technology,” it’s made of different materials that were 3D-printed simultaneously.

Given the inspiration, materials, and construction, it’s safe to say that most of van Herpen’s pieces are works of sculpture. But that’s not how we think of dresses, which complicates the conversation. It’s safe to say that most people see these as dresses first and as sculpture second (if at all).

Science: From Concept to Creations

We can’t necessarily say that van Herpen’s works are science, but we can say that they are representations of science. She designs dresses meant to evoke everything from electrical energy …

… to underground fungal networks …

… microorganisms (perhaps that’s why this dress has no sleeves?) …

If you want to get deep into the science, the curatorial label for van Herpen’s “Syntopia” dress noted that it was “inspired by the movement of birds captured by chronophotography a photographic technique that captures a series of images of a moving subject at regular intervals and then combines them into a single image. With this technique the evolving movements and shapes of a subject, usually an animal, are broken down frame by trame With the Syntopia dress, the simple structures of feathers are used to transform the humans body into a hybrid being, blurring the boundaries between living organisms.”

Vaan Herpen looks to a wide range of scientific sources as she develops her works. For instance, you can see the undulating forms in this dress reflected in the sea life illustrated in Art Forms in Nature, by Ernst Haeckel.

If fashion can reflect sea creatures drawn on paper, wait until you wander Singapore’s intertidal zone — nature’s originals are just as wild.

This video, featuring close-up footage of Cladosporium—a genus of fungi that includes some of the most common molds—helps viewers appreciate just how closely van Herpen’s designs mimic forms found in nature.

So if you’re wondering, “why was there a fashion exhibit at the ArtScience Museum?” the answer is that fashion and science may not be that far apart at all. Science can be both an inspiration and a basis for creation.

Somehow, science, sculpture, and fashion all work together. When I look at van Herpen’s dresses, I often think, “I could never wear that,” but it is fun to contemplate about what might work for me and what wouldn’t. The things that wouldn’t work for me often make me stop and stare the longest. And that’s a great way to encounter art.

One Final Note

It’s exciting to see how artists’ pieces work in conjunction with van Herpen’s designs. For example, the curators offered Contact Lens, by Japanese artist Haurka Kojin, “in dialogue with Iris van Herpen’s creative universe.” If you look closely, you’ll see dresses in the spheres!

Want to see traditional fashion in Singapore? Both the Peranakan Museum and the Asian Civilizations Museum showcase striking local textiles, costumes, and wedding wear. And for one of my very favorite fashion exhibits in Singapore, check out this post on Guo Pei.