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| Detail of a couture dress from Sympoiesis by Iris van Herpen — Paris Haute Couture Week Fall/Winter 2025–2026), Paris, July 7, 2025. Miami Art Reviews |
Fashion Review: Iris van Herpen Haute Couture
FW 2025/2026 “Sympoiesis”
By Ana Bikic Miamiartreviews@gmail.com
Iris van Herpen’s latest haute couture show in Paris transcends traditional fashion: it feels more like a theatrical installation or an immersive art performance than a clothes presentation.
The collection is officially titled Sympoiesis. JTDapper Fashion Week
From the very opening, the stage direction, choreography, and lighting all became active participants, sculpting and illuminating the garments, giving them life and aura. The dresses didn’t simply walk the runway: they swayed, glowed, fluttered, and sometimes trembled, as if breathing. Women's Wear Daily
Materials, Techniques & Effects
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The "living look" composed of 125 million bioluminescent algae was a standout: a dress that glows in response to movement, blurring the boundary between garment and organism. Women's Wear Daily
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Many pieces featured ultra-light “air fabric,” translucent layering, laser-cut boning in carbon fiber, and organic sculpted forms that echo fins, skeletal structures, or wing-like appendages. JTDapper Fashion Week
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Some kinetic elements, such as wings fluttering via delicate armature coils, added motion and literal life to the silhouettes. JTDapper Fashion Week
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Biofabrication played a role: e.g. fermented / “brewed protein” fibers (via Spiber) sculpted into coral-like textures layered over sheer organza. JTDapper Fashion Week
Aesthetic & Concept
The collection channels underwater realms, deep-sea organisms, tidal motion, and the fragile interdependence between humans and nature. The forms evoke wings of dragonflies, fish fins, membranous structures, organic cellular shapes, and ephemeral currents. JTDapper Fashion Week
In that sense, many looks feel like wearable art more than pragmatic garments. Some of the more dramatic appendages or elaborate structural pieces could be perceived as "costume" rather than everyday wear, yet, that likely is intentional: the emphasis is on theatrical expression, conceptual narrative, and boundary-pushing couture.
When stripped of the more extreme elements (wings, rigid attachments, external armatures), the core dress designs are still beautifully sculpted and elegant. Do remove some of the extraneous "extensions," and you’d have dresses that stand on their own in a refined, astonishing way.
The choreography and lighting were deeply clever: the garments were not just under lights but became mediums for light, shadow, glow, and movement. The interplay made the silhouettes shift in perception, fade in and out, or reveal hidden textures. It was an immersive aesthetic experience.
Overall, it’s not just fashion; it’s a sensory narrative, an installation, a speculative vision of what couture can become, alive, responsive, and ecologically aware.
Iris van Herpen Sympoiesis FW 2025 Review:
Couture as Living Art
Iris Van Herpen, Sympoiesis, Haute Couture, Bioluminescent Dress, Living Algae Garment, Kinetic Structure, Biofabrication, 3D Print Couture, Air Fabric, Organic Silhouette, Underwater Aesthetic, Performance Fashion, Light Choreography, Futuristic Dress, Sculptural Couture, Eco Couture, Fashion as Art
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