Iris van Herpen North American Design Tour Premieres at High Museum of Art

Sat, Nov 7 - Sun, May 15  2016

From November 7, 2015 until May 15, 2016, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta will be the first US museum to present a major exhibition, “Transforming Fashion,” of work by visionary Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen. 

About Iris van Herpen and the Exhibition

Marking the High’s first presentation of fashion design, the exhibition “Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion” features one-of-a-kind haute couture. Van Herpen is known for combining traditional craftsmanship with innovative and futuristic techniques and her work includes some of the world’s first examples of 3D-printed fashion. With her couture designs Van Herpen has gained critical acclaim for interweaving traditional handwork with groundbreaking technology. She often collaborates with architects, engineers, and digital design specialists to create designs that feature unusual materials like magnets, umbrella ribs, or synthetic boat riggings. Her work has been worn by numerous style icons such as Lady Gaga, Bjork, and Beyoncé, and has graced the runways of Amsterdam, London, and Paris.

The exhibition “Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion” features 45 outfits from 15 collections designed from 2008 through 2015 and offers a comprehensive visual survey of Van Herpen’s design career to date. Included are 18 pieces from the designer’s most recent line and a selection of her shoe designs, as well as 27 pieces from the Groningen Museum’s 2012 solo exhibition of Van Herpen’s work. The pieces are displayed on custom mannequins and are presented with videos from her multimedia runway shows. Accompanying wall texts explore the underlying concepts for each piece in the exhibition and examine how intuition and imagination are central to Van Herpen’s creation process.

The exhibition is co-organized with the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands. Following its presentation at the High, the exhibition will travel to multiple venues throughout North America including the Grand Rapids Art Museum (Fall 2016), and the Dallas Museum of Art (Spring 2017).

Special Event:

On November 7, at 2 PM join Iris van Herpen in discussion with Eugene Rabkin, Editor and Creative Director of “StyleZeitgeist” magazine at the Rich Theater in the Woodruff Arts Center. RSVP: berry.perkins@woodruffcenter.org. 

About the High Museum of Art

With more than 15000 works of art in its collection, the High Museum of Art has an extensive anthology of 19^th – and 20^th– century American art; a significant collection of historic and contemporary decorative arts and design; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography, folk and self-taught art. The High is also dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists.