Iris van Herpen first collection RTW

 Iris van Herpen is pleased to announce the launch of her first ready- to-wear collection: Phy-tha-go-rash

Guest Member of the Chambre syndicale de la Haute Couture since July 2011, Iris van Herpen never ceased to forge bridges between creation, technical innovation and scientific research. An approach she perpetuates with her first ready-to-wear collection, Phy-tha-go-rash, inspired by the Pythagoras tree.

A geometrical figure created according to mathematics' logic, the Pythagoras tree deploys as an arborescence, which takes the shape of a trunk with multiples branches. And this is precisely this ability of a mathematic structure that leads to an organic figure that raised Iris Van Herpen's interest here. Like a modern alchemist, she shapes her clothes as "living" elements using the most innovative techniques. Nowhere near to oppose science and nature, her clothing incarnates the absolute symbiosis between those two forces.

This first ready-to-wear collection is, for the designer, the opportunity to expand her avant-garde and experimental approach to a more functional dimension. Dresses, coats, blouses, skirts, pants and knit wears - and three different styles of shoes  - are many propositions thought for the everyday life and directly adapted from the Couture designer expertise. The garments are all an extension from what I do and discover in the Couture, they are a translation from materials, structure and handwork but then within a daily wearable function.

The materials are goat-suede, goat-leather, georgette silk, cashmere, angora wool, viscose-cotton knitwear, micro-fiber with leather lace, metal snake-chains, laser-cutted plexi-glass, laced-up leather strings, alpaca wool, curled hand-braided suede with foil coating and faux-rye-leather. The colors are black, nude, cream, aubergine and olive and copper.

After showing earlier this year during her « Voltage » show, the first flexible 3D printed dress, Iris van Herpen intends to propose to make this technique at the reach of a more larger audience: the flexible 3D printed jackets of the Phy-tha-go-rash collection will be produced by adapting a 3D modeling tool of each body using a software. Exclusively available online, this custom made technique embodies the ambition of the designer to provide a ready-to-wear collection as innovative and challenging as her Couture line.