Brooklyn is living a fashion dream this fall: the Brooklyn Museum is hosting the North American debut of “Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses,” the first major New York presentation of the celebrated Dutch designer’s work. The exhibition is on view through December 6, 2026, filling the museum’s fifth-floor galleries with pure imagination.
More than 140 of Van Herpen’s extraordinary haute couture creations are on display, garments that look like coral reefs, branching trees, and galaxies. A pioneer in using new technologies, she blends traditional couture craftsmanship with biomimicry, fractal geometry, mathematics, and neuroscience to sculpt ethereal gowns and futuristic fabrics that have been worn by luminaries including Beyoncé, Björk, Cate Blanchett, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, and Ariana Grande.
The experience is a feast for the senses: the couture pieces appear alongside contemporary artworks, designs by Philip Beesley, Rogan Brown, Casey Curran, Kim Keever, and Nick Knight, plus scientific artifacts and natural history specimens like coral, fossils, and skeletons. An immersive soundscape by composer Salvador Breed completes this multisensory journey from the ocean’s depths to the outer reaches of the universe.
Building on the museum’s legacy of defining fashion exhibitions, this stop of a global tour — organized by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and previously seen in Brisbane, Singapore, and Rotterdam — invites visitors to discover how the body, technology, nature, and imagination connect. It is a joyful reminder of New York’s power to turn fashion into art.
Photo: Kgbo / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
