Iris van Herpen ~ Meta Morphism

At Paris Haute Couture Week 2022, Iris van Herpen celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the Maison with ‘Meta Morphism’. Holding a lens to our intangible identities and shifting society with the metaverse and hyperreality at the horizon, this collection explores the depths of the body in posthuman realities. With the new realms of our digital lives expanding, we are faced with an eternally rhetorical question: who are we beyond our physical bodies? Is the digital you shaping your pre-existing com- pass? Through 'Meta Morphism’, Van Herpen expresses the body as an elusive system, rooted in transcience and speaks to a greater message of introspection. The leitmotif of van Herpen’s history expresses the body in a state of permanent flux, metamorphosing with the milieu, and while the Maison is regarded for its futuristic approach, this season the designer reflects on Ovid's magnus opus poem ‘Metamorphoses’. At the time of Ovid’s writing, the act of metamorphosis was appreciated in relation to humanity and its place amongst nature, yet Ovid’s retelling exists a relevance today, navigating the ramifications of technology that is constantly complicating the definition of identity. With the ability to recreate our digi- tal twins, the space of soul-searching, losing a sense of self, and finding new realities, are life lessons. The collection examines the ancient visions of Ovid’s mythology through modern themes of transhumanism, where man and technology ex- ist in eternal fluc