A sense of urgency laps at every facet of Sympoiesis, the new collection presented by Iris van Herpen at Paris Haute Couture Week in summer 2025.
For nearly two decades, the couturier has worked in communion with the primordial rhythm of the organic and the human imperative of the technological. Within Sympoiesis manifests the growing fragility of their interdependence.
Iris van Herpen: Exploring the Ocean’s Essence
To navigate the fracturing symbiosis, Iris Van Herpen turns to the expansive, life-giving force of the ocean as a conceptual gateway. She bears witness to its ecological transformation and transcribes it into cloth via translucently layered textures, liquidised forms, and silhouettes that surge and wane as the tide.
Guided by James Lovelock’s Gaia theory, the designer examines the ocean not as a singular ecosystem but as part of a wider biospheric consciousness.
“The ocean and the atmosphere and the climate are all coupled. They are not independent systems; they are tightly woven together in a self-regulating fabric,” mused Lovelock.
Therefore, the collection explores how we are one with the ocean, the largest and most important ecosystem on our planet that generates more than half of the oxygen we breathe.
Seeking to convey not only the ocean’s state of peril but its innate beauty in the collection too, Iris Van Herpen draws upon the freeform movement of Loie Fuller to embody the full spectrum of its forms.
From its wild tidal power to its amorphous organisms, the pioneering muse and dancer embraced the unpredictability of fabric in motion.
As the show opens with a performance created in collaboration with light artist Nick Verstand, Fuller’s moves are thrown into the future.
Near-invisible Japanese airfabric becomes a light painting. As if she is leaving her solid body, the voluminous phantom silhouettes radiate organic patterns of light that are activated by the movements of the dancer in real time.
Sympoiesis draws this thread out in a pioneering collaboration with biodesigner Chris Bellamy – a first-of-its-kind living look.
Inhabited by 125 million bioluminescent algae which emit light in response to movement, the Pyrocystis Lunula algae were grown in sea-water baths over several months within a specialised nutrient gel.
The chamber in which the living look is nurtured becomes a microcosm of the ocean’s delicate balancing point.
Caring for the garment, and for the 125 million Pyrocystis Lunula it contains, requires a symbiotic relationship and redefines the creation traditions entirely.
Iris Van Herpen’s prevailing dedication to exploring new textile technologies washes over the entire collection.
The promise of life is captured spectacularly in another collaborative addition; a new kinetic look created with artist Casey Curran.
Iris Van Herpen was “turned upside down” by David Attenborough’s documentary ‘Ocean’, a searing exploration of the ecological importance of the seas and marine life.
The vastness of undiscovered species and the magnitude of climate damage and human destruction are highlighted. But it offered hope too, showing how marine wonders bounce back much quicker than anticipated when they are protected by sanctuaries, so-called ‘safe zones’.
Coral-like colonies are constructed from Brewed Protein – a novel fermented fibre by biotech company Spiber.
This material has been laser cut and heat bonded to sheer organza. Meanwhile, ivory silk is draped upside down onto wave-shaped casts and coated with a fine layer of resin, becoming a cresting wave held in suspension – just before the chaos of the rolling crash.
“This collection is a collaboration with nature itself. In this time of ecological emergency and biodiversity loss, biodesign invites us to rethink the way we ‘use’ materials.
It visualises a future where all human design is not just inspired by nature, but integrated with it,” says Iris Van Herpen.
by Olga Barrale