'Quaquaversal' - Iris van Herpen Spring-Summer 2016 womenswear collection

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', Iris explained.

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 - laser cutting, hand weaving and 3-D printing into one dress, which spreads from the center, quaquaversal (sloping downward from the center in all directions) 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', siad 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 changeable 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, gray, 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.

Photos and Information: irisvanherpen.com