What we learned from Iris van Herpen’s mono.kultur interview

Berlin-based journal mono.kultur is back with a particularly delightful new issue. For #47 of the single-interview magazine, titled “The Unknownness of Everything”, writer Charmaine Li speaks to Dutch couture visionary Iris van Herpen, whose spellbindingly spectacular creations have shook the old guard of the fashion industry to its core. Having started her eponymous label at the age of 23 in 2007, van Herpen has gone on to design for the likes of Bjork and Solange (and recently Rihanna, who was captured in a deep blue van Herpen confection for a controversial Harper’s Bazaar cover), and is commonly regarded as being more an alchemist or “sorceress” of style. Once again, her most recent couture collection, Hypnosis, which  premiered in Paris last month, was a viral phenomenon, expanding and complicating our understanding of fashion, science, tech and creativity, and everything in between.

Here’s some takeaways from the interview, where the luminary discusses her working process, where she finds inspiration, the industry, and of course, the future of fashion.

On learning through making

“My work is, in the end, like a diary. Through making the collections, I learn about the world around me as much as I learn about myself – what is actually important to me, what shapes me as a woman, why I’m alive, what has meaning for me, what I hope to do for the world. These are not things I can just sit down and think about. It doesn’t work like that. It has to come out through action, through the materials I choose and through my pieces.”

On where she looks for inspiration for her collections

“I don’t want the collections to come from logic. I don’t want them to come from my mind. I believe that the unconscious is a more powerful tool. If I were to pre-think a collection and then make it, it would feel like I’m walking behind myself.”

On the importance of process

“The end is for other people, but the process is for me. It’s really beautiful to see the evolution of a collection, the movement from nothing into something through the pieces. To me, that’s the piece of dance I’m looking for. When dresses are finished, they’re like a frozen movement, and that’s beautiful for other people; but I need to go back and start all over again.”

On finding ways to do things better and more sustainably in the fashion industry 

“The world and fashion are changing so rapidly, that I believe there is a strength and advantage in the very small. Of course, there’s always an advantage in big companies, but they’re also slow to change. The flexibility and ability to do things differently is a strength, and that should be taken with both hands. So don’t try to copy the structures, or the ways of doing things that a big company did 20, 50, or 100 years ago, because that won’t be the way to do it now. It sounds cliché, but it’s about finding a way that translates the world around you differently, to use fashion as an instrument to make sense of the future … As makers, we have to change the way we make things. The way we create now just isn’t sustainable. There’s a lot of room for new generations to come in and find new ways of producing and developing materials, while not creating so much waste. But you can only do that by not copying what has been done before.”

On the future of fashion

“People, of course, ask me about what the future of fashion will be, and even the future of everyday life, and the truth is I honestly don’t know. Fashion is always reflecting the rest of the world, like politics and the economy, but I don’t know where the whole planet is going. I do like reading about it though, and I read a lot about different people who are more specialised than me, and their predictions about the future. But the more you read about it, the more you become aware that no one really knows. And that’s maybe a very fruitful soil to create from. We need the unknownness of everything… and that also creates space for us to influence it. People always talk about the future as if it’s set in stone – when really the future is completely open. It is up to us to create what the future will be.”

The latest issue of mono.kultur, Iris van Herpen: The Unknownness of Everything is available to buy now online or in selected stores. 

CREDITS

Interview by Charmaine Li
Photography by Mathieu Cesar; Robert Clark; Bryan Huynh; Inez & Vinoodh; ioulex; Nick Knight; Luigi & Iango; Jean-Baptiste Mondino; Armin Morbach; Petrovsky & Ramone; Warren du Preez & Nick Thornton Jones; Ronald Stoops; Emma Summerton; Sølve Sundsbø; Juergen Teller; Ellen von Unwerth; Duy Vo; Michel Zoeter