3D Printing

3D Printing a Beautifully Whimsy Fashion Statement

It’s THAT time of year when the latest fashion collections hit the catwalks of the world and for the fifth year running, Iris van Herpen has unveiled an haute couture and ready-to-wear range that utilizes 3D printing, and her ninth consecutive collection in total.

To great acclaim, yesterday Ms van Herpen unveiled her Biopiracy Collection, considered to be her most ambitious and certainly her largest collection to date, at Les Docks – Cité de la Mode et du Design in Paris. Comprising 26 pieces in total the finale to the collection was a 3D printed dress developed in collaboration with the 3D printing company Materialise and Austrian architect, Julia Koerner. This is Iris van Herpen’s 11th 3D printed dress in total and speaks of her experience and evolution as a designer captivated by the possibilities of 3D printing. The designer has frequently depended on the 3D printing capabilities of the Belgian 3D printing company and obviously trusts their output.

Iris van Herpen Biopiracy Dress Julia Koerner Materialise

For this dress, Iris van Herpen again utilised Materialise’s flexible material for 3D Printing, TPU 92A-1, which she has used previously for her Voltage collection last year. However, for the 2014 Biopiracy Collection, Iris and Julia worked together on a design that successfully pushed the limits of both the TPU 92A-1 3D printing material and the Laser Sintering 3D printing process. Materialise’s expertise with its proprietary Magics software was also brought to bear on the project and was used to optimize the design of the dress for the 3D printing process. The 3D printed results were then coated in silicon by Iris’s team to give the flowing, flexible dress a glossy sheen. Given the intricacy and movement of the design on the catwalk, captured in the images, the creation was well received by fashion critics, as were the accompanying 3D printed shoes / boots (a collaboration with United Nude). But the other thing that this dress shows is how far 3D printing — the materials and technology — has progressed. And they continue to do so.

Speaking about the latest collection Sven Hermans, Iris van Herpen’s dedicated Account Manager at Materialise said: “It was a pleasure to work together with Iris and Julia once again to put Materialise’s software and machines to the test. Getting a close look at the dress backstage and then seeing it move so gracefully on the catwalk, I can feel proud of what Iris van Herpen, together with Julia Koerner and Materialise have achieved.”

iris biopiracy boot 3d printing Iris van Herpen X United Nude Biopiracy

The History of Iris van Herpen and Materialise

Iris van Herpen’s collaboration with Materialise began in 2010 with the Crystallization Collection, done with the support of architect Daniel Widrig and unveiled during Amsterdam International Fashion Week. This was followed by four pieces in 2011’s Escapism Collection, a collection again done with Widrig, which debuted to critical acclaim during Paris Fashion Week- Haute Couture. A final piece for 2011 played a central role in an exhibition entitled The New Craft: Iris van Herpen and her Inspiration at the Central museum Utrecht as well as taking to the runway in Paris with the Capriole collection. Known as the Skeleton Dress, this piece was done in collaboration with architect Isaïe Bloch.

In January 2012, Iris van Herpen revealed her second collection as a guest member of the very exclusive haute couture club – Micro Haute Couture – working again with Bloch. This time, she brought her printed design one step further by having it metal plated for a gorgeous bronze finish. Later in the year, she worked with architect Julia Koerner for her Autumn/Winter 2012/2013 collection – Hybrid Holism – in which she explored Mammoth Stereolithography for the first time. The result was a 3D Printed dress which one awestruck spectator compared to “liquid honey.”

Finally, in January 2013, ready for an even greater challenge, an experimental new material, TPU 92A-1, was put to use in the creation of a flexible, soft dress of stunning complexity for Iris van Herpen’s Voltage Collection. Designed once more in collaboration with Julia Koerner, the piece’s intricate lace-like texture was created with precision by lasers (in a process known as Laser Sintering) and would have been impossible to realise any other way. Later in the year, she took another bold step into the unknown with the Wilderness Embodied collection by producing a hybrid creation involving both 3D printing and traditional craftsmanship. The dress incorporated unique, transparent bone-like structures produced with Mammoth Stereolithography which were over-moulded in silicon by Iris van Herpen’s team, a process that demands great skill and which took weeks to complete. The final result was, as always, stunning.