This designer has made gowns for Beyoncé and Björk. She needed my help

Article Tools

Contact The Editor Articles By This Author

Iris van Herpen needed my help. That made me nervous.

This was the Dutch designer who had created breathtaking looks for Beyoncé tours, Björk albums and more than a dozen Met Gala looks, including Eileen Gu's 2026 bubble dress.

On Sunday, as part of the Brooklyn Museum retrospective "Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses," the 42-year-old designer invited the public to join her on-site atelier to help her craft a dress right there in the museum. (The designer will make additional appearances in October.)

As part of my one-on-one time with Van Herpen, I sat at a table gazing at a strip of silver mesh fused with silk.

"This was made 30 years ago, and no one makes it anymore," Van Herpen said.

"Don't mess it up," she added with a laugh, before instructing me to make pleats with the fabric.

It was basically how we made fans in kindergarten by folding construction paper accordion-style. I was "helping" Van Herpen the way a child "helps" her mother bake cookies by pouring in a pre-measured teaspoon of vanilla and then licking the bowl. Look, Mom! I'm helping!

The exhibition, which runs through Dec. 6, showcases more than 140 of Van Herpen's elaborate, intricate and sometimes mind-boggling designs worn by artists such as Lorde, Grimes, Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez. Van Herpen told me that while she doesn't think about "muses" when creating, she does hope to dress Zendaya one day.

The walls of this room - labeled "Alchemical Atelier" - are covered with scraps, swatches and samples of Van Herpen's ornate and complicated process. Her creations are inspired by exoskeletons, mathematical formulas and repeated patterns found in nature.

"In my work, I'm definitely traveling time," Van Herpen said from a Brooklyn apartment near the museum during an earlier video interview.

"A lot of people, when they reference my work, they see fossil textures - very ancient constructions - because that natural element is in there," she said. "At the same time, people also see the future in it. I would say I'm always trying to find that balance between the two."

Since founding her label in 2007, she has collaborated with scientists and master craftsmen to pioneer new construction techniques that incorporate 3D printing, laser cutting and iron filings cast in resin, manipulated with magnets.

"But the simple handwork is as powerful in a way," Van Herpen said as she hand-stitched the pleated strips into abstract clusters. "It reminds me of coral and lava at the same time," she said.

Van Herpen had a rough sketch of a gown for reference in front of her. "But the real design process is happening on the stand."

She gestured to the dress form to her left, where Petra Schuddeboom, the head of atelier at Iris van Herpen, pinned, stitched and occasionally stepped back to contemplate the work in progress.

Museumgoers watched and recorded us on their phones. Museum employees with clipboards and lanyards attended to the line of about 15 people who were waiting for their audience with the designer.

Obviously, the scene reminded me of Marina Abramovic's 2010 work "The Artist is Present," in which the public lined up for one-on-one sessions to silently sit across a table from the performance artist.

"I would not say this is a performance like Marina would do," Van Herpen said. She admires performance artists such as Abramovic, Yoko Ono and Miles Greenberg, but says she's doing something different.

"It's not about a performance as something on its own. It's really an expression of who I am and why I create and how I create."

She asked each of the participants to share "an important moment that they've had with nature." I told her about taking my boyfriend to a swimming hole in New Mexico. She told me about a three-week hike in the Dolomites with her partner, the musician Salvador Breed, and their dog, Gaia.

Breed created the custom soundscapes for "Sculpting the Senses," which were tweaked and customized for the New York exhibition. One room that featured skeletal designs had sporadic pops that sounded like drips in a cave or knuckles cracking, or delicate bones breaking. Crisp! Satisfying! Unnerving!

As she sewed and I folded, Van Herpen told me that we were also part of a sort of sound installation that very day.

"All the conversations are being recorded," she said. "And I'm going to take out the ones that are inspirational to me and embroider them to the inside of the dress."

I turned to the sleeveless silver gown, its skirt gradually filling up with hand-pleated embellishments, and imagined my story about making out in a waterfall secretly sewn into its lining. The thought added to the juvenile thrill of touching fabric that a master designer would turn into a beautiful dress.

"Look!" I wanted to shout from the table. "I'm helping!"

Shane O'Neill connects the dots between entertainment news, internet fads, celebrity gossip and pop culture ephemera to sketch a portrait of how we live today.