Download transcript
full interview_iris van herpen_4.mp4
Iris van Herpen [00:00:00] I'm Iris van Herpen, I'm a fashion designer. I create haute couture, which is the idol fashion.
Speaker 2 [00:00:13] So what fashion? How did you end up? What does fashion mean to you?
Iris van Herpen [00:00:19] I grew up very creatively. Music and dance were my biggest influences. I did classical ballet for a long time and violin. But somehow I ended up on the art academy because painting was also something that I really loved doing. And in my first year of the art I was doing all these these different disciplines and also a bit of fashion and I started to realize that I could bring these different disciplines into this very personal discipline which is fashion. I see it as a form of art but one that is very close to my own body and a way to express my inner world to the outer world.
Speaker 2 [00:01:14] Was that a, did that feel natural to you? Was that, was that a big question? Because people say art and painting would seem like a very natural direction. It seems like a bit of a farther.
Iris van Herpen [00:01:27] It was somewhat unexpected for me because I grew up in a small village and fashion really wasn't part of my upbringing. I didn't have fashion magazines and even didn't have a television. So the pop side of fashion was really not part of my world. So it was unexpected in a way, but When I think back of it, it was also a very natural one, because if I think of my dance background and the movement that I'm creating today, it's so directly related. So it's as if I could bring my teaching of dance and the transformations of my own body into materiality around my own buddy. So it was like I could bring it to the end. My inner world to the outer world in a very dimensional way.
Speaker 2 [00:02:36] Your art, your practice, and the clothes that you design, that you've been showing us, are not really, and you can push back, but they don't seem to be meant to be worn on a regular basis, which people often think about with fashion.
Iris van Herpen [00:02:55] Well, I think fashion is a wild field. Garments, as we wear them every day, but it's also a language. It's a tool for transformation, I feel. It is a very powerful tool and it's even a political tool. It really is a language to describe what is important to us and also our future projections of the world that we want create, just like other art forms. We shouldn't forget about that side of fashion. And because it's a functional tool, people tend to forget about it. It's the same scope as that. We all have the sounds around us that we live with and our own voice and our language, but there's also music and it's much more concentrated and consciously created and that's sort of the same scope. That fashion also embodies. It's a very wide field that really goes from practical all the way into, I would say, philosophy. Yeah, I really... Feel the connection between fashion and architecture and science and dance and I don't really tend to acknowledge the boundaries that we've created too much because they do have a function but if you box these disciplines in too much you lose the strength of them and It is really in the intersection of these disciplines that I think the true magic lies.
Speaker 2 [00:04:55] So where do you, you get your inspirations, I mean you always get it from a lot of places, but would you say you get a lot of it from other fashion, examples of fashion, or do you get it from things that really have nothing to do with fashion in a sense?
Iris van Herpen [00:05:11] Interestingly enough, I do find inspiration in fashion, but usually it's more historic. Contemporary fashion is definitely an influence. Some of the Japanese designers, but also Alexander McQueen, where I did my internship, they have influence on my work, but it's often more historical craftsmanship and styles and shapes. Techniques that are a bigger influence on me. Also because there's so much repetition in the techniques and the way of making the garments nowadays that I feel more freedom if I travel through culture and time, but beyond fashion. Architecture, nature, dance, science, they are definitely the biggest influences. And these are really wide fields of inspiration, so I can keep on tapping into them and discovering new elements to translate into my work.
Speaker 2 [00:06:26] Where do we see the science of humor?
Iris van Herpen [00:06:29] Where? You just have to look for it. It's hard to be very literal about it, it's not really possible to point at a technique and to say this is inspired by this theory, but it's really in the conversations and the books that I've been reading that have just enriched my way of thinking. And therefore also my way of approaching fashion. So it's a, yeah, it's an abstract translation. I guess the most literal one that I can point out is the book Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake on which I dedicated the whole collection. Which is Woods of Weber. So the mycelial structures were really translated into that collection and also some mushroom fabrics were very directly translated. Also my own experience with taking mushrooms and the influence they have on your point of view and the power that transformation of experience can create has really been, I think, a very hidden force in my work. I've actually never really talked about the direct relationship between taking mushrooms and my daily practice of creating, but I am quite sure that that has a very direct relationship as well.
Speaker 2 [00:08:20] Because it's something you do often.
Iris van Herpen [00:08:23] No, not at all, but just once in a few years and I really take it as a special moment. It's not something I do for entertainment or for fun, but really to enrich that moment in my life. It's comparable to skydiving. I also don't do that a lot, but I do it. Just now and then when I'm on a very special moment in my life or on a special location and it resets the body and mind, it's like creating a new beginning for a moment and I think mushrooms can do the same.
Speaker 2 [00:09:09] So talking about reset, I think when we talked to you on Zoom, you were about to take some time off, and you talked about it being a reset. So how does that work with creativity? Because obviously, looking at your practice and all of anybody who's creative, there's a lot of just focus, focus, focus in order to do things, and it can overwhelm. I mean, that's me talking, but here's what you think about it.
Iris van Herpen [00:09:32] Well it's a learning process. I've always worked in fashion and the speed of fashion is quite unhealthy. It's always creating new collections, it's always being in a rush and I enjoy that a lot. I need deadlines and it gives a lot of energy and focus. Also, because you're forced to take... Decisions very intuitively. There's basically no time to overthink things. So that's a very positive side, but I also realize creativity is about giving and taking. And if you give and give and give, there's just, I don't know, you start repeating yourself. There No. Depth of your inspiration anymore, because inspiration can also be translated in many different levels of honesty. You can just take something quickly or you can really dive into it and there's a difference between that and the outcome. And I noticed that I really need to take time to... Soak in my inspiration but then I have to be quick in translating it. If I take too much time to translate my inspiration then I start overthinking it and then it becomes either too literal or I don't know just not personal enough. But on the other hand I've also had moments where I just didn't have enough time to... Really dive into my inspiration enough and then it becomes superficial, I think. So it's all about balance in the end and taking time off is something I really had to learn. I had to force myself because I'm quite a workaholic and I now realize the value of it and I think I found a much healthier balance in my creativity, also realizing Creativity is a sense, just as are other senses, and... It's fragile, so realizing the fragility or becoming conscious about the fragillity of my own creativity has really made me grow.
Speaker 2 [00:12:23] What do you... What do you start off with? Do you start out with a blank slate? When you create something, how do you...?
Iris van Herpen [00:12:29] I think a blank slate is not very possible. I think there is so much influence from so many directions all the time. I think the only blank slates that I've really experienced are those moments of skydiving or taking some mushrooms. When I have a proper reset, maybe. There was a blank slate, but even then I think it's still a, yeah, a blend of all the things happening to me at that moment and all the people that are influencing me at the moment. I always work with a team. I'm not a solo artist and my team has a lot of influence on me as well. And also the collaborators. I intentionally collaborate with people to widen my way of thinking and also to challenge the techniques that I'm used to and to also not become too comfortable within my own work. I consciously embed some disruption, even though it's What? Uhhh... It's not necessarily in my nature to collaborate. Like my intuition is to work solo, but I never really do it. So I think it's an interesting confrontation that I search for in my process.
Speaker 2 [00:14:28] What are the challenges to collaborating?
Iris van Herpen [00:14:33] Collaboration is challenging because you have to open yourself fully in the process. The only way to really get to know each other as creatives is to become best friends basically. You really have to open up and to... Also share your insecurities within the process and I think that's the only way you can really come closer, especially when it's two different disciplines. If you don't... If you don't want the collaboration to be brief, but if you want the collaboration to long-term, then it's really about sharing quite intimate moments, because when I'm designing, I have the rule to not really share it with anyone until it's finished, but my collaborations are the exceptions. And of course the people close to me and my team. And it's very counter-intuitive in a way. So, yeah, it's something that I had to learn and it only happened after a few years where I really was focused on craftsmanship solely. I did everything by hand. I didn't even use a sewing machine. It was very... Pure way of working, but at a certain moment I really felt I was getting stuck into the way I was working and I felt the limitations of my own hands. And that's where I got introduced to two architects, Benjamin Crowell, here in Amsterdam. And they were working on a new museum and this is like... 12 years ago and they were working with 3D printers to make their maquettes and I saw the way the 3D print was built up in the tiny layers, very three-dimensional and I recognized a freedom of form in the technique and that was the first time I started collaborating outside of my own discipline. And it was not an easy process, because it became very technical. And at that point, I did not really work with computers. I wasn't very used to combining my craftsmanship with other methods. But I wanted to work with the 3D printer so badly that I started collaborating with the architects and also a file maker. And I started to open up a bit and I really learned a lot from the people I collaborated with back then. So, yeah, I think that was a turning point in my creative process and my own realization of the strength of collaboration.
Speaker 2 [00:18:14] So we spent some time with one of your collaborators. Yeah. Tell them, tell us about him.
Iris van Herpen [00:18:20] I've been collaborating with Philip Beasley and his studio for a long time, approximately 10 years now. And the first collaboration that we worked on was my Voltage collection. And that was quite an intense process, because we've only met like six weeks before I had my show in Paris. And I was so inspired by that first meeting. He came to the Atelier here with two big suitcases full of samples, and we spent the whole day sharing samples and ideas and dreams for the future. And we talked about an immaterial dress, which actually later on is very directly related to the dress we just looked at. That was inspired by our CERN visit. But I felt so inspired by that first meeting that we gave ourselves the challenge to already start working on looks for that voltage collection. So in six weeks we created three looks with three different techniques and I still don't know how we did it. If you would ask me now to remake those three looks in the time that we had, I don't think we would be able to. But I think there was an energy of... Getting to know him, obviously I didn't know him before, but it felt like we knew each other for a long time and I just had to embody that energy into the new work. And since then, we've always been sharing ideas and samples and it's not only us, but it's also our teams. Like Petra and the others in the Atelier, they have a very good relationship with the team of Filip. So it's a continuous ecosystem of different disciplines, because we have people in the studio from fashion, but also different backgrounds, from engineering to architecture to design. And Filip as well, he has all these different disciplines. Also in his studio and it's just a beautiful ecosystem of different disciplines working on on the textures and even though the disciplines of architecture and fashion seem far reached the process when you zoom in is very similar yeah.
Speaker 2 [00:21:25] Check it.
Iris van Herpen [00:21:29] By the way, I'm completely fine if you want to go for some food, because I'm not in a hurry. Oh, no, thank you. We have other places for you after this.
Speaker 2 [00:21:44] So you know what happens if it leaks in the energy level perhaps right after. OK. That's true. Yes. It's not going to be too long. No.
Speaker 3 [00:21:56] Yeah. Collaboration question.
Speaker 2 [00:21:57] Yeah, I wanted to follow up on Philip for a second. It's been out then after that, you can ask. So I'm just going to look at my note here. Philip talked a lot, and I think that you share the view is that, um... You're interested, you're both interested in kind of biology, sort of living things. He talked about small cellular units. So maybe just tell us that from your perspective. He's
Iris van Herpen [00:22:32] Biomimicry is a big influence on my work. I love exploring the different forces behind the forms in nature and so does Filip, like the processes within nature and the force of transformation that is in us and around us all the time. It's so infinite and it's so overwhelming when you start looking at the constant flow that everything is in. It's just such a big influence on my work, and ultimately I hope to capture that essence of transformation in my work. And I don't think I've succeeded yet, but that's actually a good thing because that makes me want to go on. And to, like, I realize how far away... My own work is from, um... From Duhmmmmmm from the life cycle in nature. I think when I look at fashion it really can learn a lot from nature in the sense that in nature all of the cycles are circular and the end is always the beginning and we are still so far away from that and that is really something that I have dedicated myself especially in the last few years to. Try to understand the cycles of materiality more and to also bring it into my practice. And that's also something Filip is focusing on. And the collaborations that we are doing now are really focused on sustainable materials, so we're working with really wonderful companies, both on creating a new biodegradable materials but also new forms of recycled materials and usually when people think about recycled materials they don't think about a very delicate high haute couture glass organza for example but by working with the right weavers we have been able now to create Fabrics that are beautiful and delicate as the traditional haute couture fabrics. So one example is our collaboration with Pali for the Ocean. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they are an organization that captures all kinds of plastics from the oceans and then we work with Italian weavers to weave them into new fabrics and in quite some of the later collections we have fabrics from plastics from the ocean. I can show you some later upstairs and you will notice that the recycled fabrics are as beautiful as the traditional ones. That is really a turning point where we are now, that a few years ago this was not possible. You would feel the difference and I think it's amazing that, yeah, it's now so well developed and a lot has to come out of that yet, yeah.
Speaker 3 [00:26:48] In the 15 years that you've been designing with technology to some extent as a partner, technology has moved forward a great deal. How have the changes in technology impacted your work?
Speaker 4 [00:27:08] Um...
Iris van Herpen [00:27:13] Ummmmmmmm Interestingly, I've been working with new technologies quite a bit in my work like 3D printing, a lot of experimentation there, a bit of 4D printing and also the casting and the molding or even using magnets to grow fabrics as we did a few years back. Um, the outcome... I always, I am looking always for a very natural outcome even though the process might be technical and I know that a lot of people create a big contrast between the technological and the but for me they... They are very close and I just try to blend both.
Speaker 2 [00:28:28] I mean, it's about tools, right? I mean it's tools to get you some, to produce something that you wanna produce.
Iris van Herpen [00:28:35] No Definitely, yeah. Like the tool itself is never really the inspiration so some artists are inspired by AI or I don't know a certain computational tool or even an algorithm. To me those are not necessarily the source of inspiration but they can be a tool and it's yeah. I think the sources of inspiration are really coming from my own background in dance and the transformations that are happening within my own body and also the influence they have on my relationships with other people. And yeah, like I said, architecture is also a big influence, but technology as such, I really approach it more as a tool.
Speaker 5 [00:29:47] How does architecture actually affect what you do when I look at your work? I can certainly see, in my mind, architectural form.
Speaker 4 [00:29:55] Yeah.
Speaker 5 [00:29:55] Of different things, but how does it play out in your mind? How does that work? Look at it and we'll give you the answer.
Iris van Herpen [00:30:05] I see fashion as very personal, like personally created shelters and then architecture is just one layer around it. When I walk to a city like Amsterdam, the city as a whole feels like a layer of another layer of a shelter around me, and... It's beautiful to walk through time so directly. Like I live in a home of 1600, so it's 400 years old. And to feel the history, it just, I don't know, it always gives me comfort to know what has been going on there. Like I know a lot about the history of my own building and... It's just giving a lot of comfort to know how much time has gone by and that I'm now part of that bigger cycle of architecture. And then, of course, when you look at the city, you see... Architecture from 1900, from now, from 1800, and pieces of... Like the way of thinking at that time is really embodied in the architecture itself and you can also always see if you compare the disciplines like fashion and architecture from a certain century you can see the connection so it's a certain mindset that is materialized and that's quite magical and I have a harder time when a city is very, very modern, when it's only one state of mind. It feels narrow-minded, so I can really get restless when I have too much of that around me. But in a city like Amsterdam, I really feel sheltered, I feel at home.
Speaker 2 [00:32:40] You talked about when you first encountered the 3D printers with the architects, whatever you said, 12 years ago, and that forced you to open yourself up or widen your vistas. Have you sort of become a bit of a polymath? Things you need to know about?
Iris van Herpen [00:33:00] That's a big word. I wouldn't want to call myself that but I definitely have an interdisciplinary approach to my way of thinking and I would not be able to make any garment that I'm doing without my influences of the other disciplines and I'm very aware of that. I actually think I'm more of an artist than a fashion designer because I approach the pieces really as one-offs. They are like pieces of my diary and that is such a personal approach that for example in the beginning, the first years, I really had a hard time to sell pieces. Like I always I had a personal connection to them so I have always been making artist copies from every piece that I was making for someone else and I think that alone already says a lot about the connection that I'm having with these pieces.
Speaker 2 [00:34:17] You have a hard time selling it emotionally, because I mean people weren't buying it. Yeah, exactly, no, I just... It should be interpreted both ways.
Iris van Herpen [00:34:26] Yeah, no, I had a hard time of letting go of these pieces emotionally. Like, I would, of course, make pieces for museums or for my private clients. And I love the fact that they are living their own lives and they go beyond my own studio, my own hands. They... They need to be worn. I just see them also as an archive of knowledge and techniques. So for some pieces, they were so specific in the way they were made, I knew that if I would not remake them for my own archive, I would not be able to make them again like ten years later because the knowledge would just get lost. And that's why I have been... Making an artist's copy of all of the pieces that I've been making for other people. And this is really an archive of knowledge and of different techniques and different materials.
Speaker 3 [00:35:44] So Petra and Christian visited Thorth a few months ago. Early in this process. How has it evolved since then?
Iris van Herpen [00:35:57] That's a good question.
Speaker 2 [00:35:58] Answer to Louie yourself. Yeah.
Iris van Herpen [00:36:00] Yeah, yeah
Speaker 2 [00:36:01] So maybe what you can say is, you know, Patrick and Christian visited with Philip and then just take it from there.
Iris van Herpen [00:36:08] Petra and Filipp went to visit Filipp, Petra went to see Filipp a few weeks ago and that is part of a cycle that we are doing more often so once in a while we will be going there or Filipp will come here. And they have done a lot of beautiful samples, little experiments and those samples have been evolving into new samples and into new samples. We call it craft illusion, it's like evolution of craftsmanship and when you're not in the process it's actually hard to see the relationship so Yeah, I could be showing you a sample that indirectly comes from one of the samples that were done back then. And some are very clearly recognizable and some samples really come from the mindset of the experimentation would have gotten a completely new form shape. Texture or so, yeah.
Speaker 2 [00:37:37] Experimentation is the point that is that part of it? Yeah.
Iris van Herpen [00:37:40] Yeah, absolutely. Experimentation is really the soul of the work. It's where I put most of my time in, more than the design process itself. The experimentation is really a playful way to discover where you want to go to, I noticed. It's intuitive and it's... Unpredictable, and I think that's the most beautiful part of the design process, like when I skip too much of the experimentation, then... It becomes, I don't know, it's hard to put it into words. It doesn't become as alive as some of the other pieces.
Speaker 2 [00:38:44] It's funny because experiment is a word we associate with science.
Iris van Herpen [00:38:48] Yeah, true. Within science, experimentation is also the time-elaborative part of a theory, for example. So you could compare a design or a vision to a theory but then everything that comes from that, all of the, yeah, the experiments, the... The techniques, they have a much longer life cycle.
Speaker 2 [00:39:24] So I know you're questioning me. You're working towards a show in GMU, right? OK. What do you think, how can you imagine it now? What are you imagining? What do think you're going to see?
Iris van Herpen [00:39:39] Well I will have to skip this question because maybe this is superstitious but I am very careful about talking on new concepts when they haven't materialized yet because I notice when I talk about it I stabilize them. And at this moment, for example, for January, I have a few different directions and I don't want to influence my decision making through conversations with others. So I'm quite stubborn in that, I would say.
Speaker 2 [00:40:31] I'm telling you, we never want to talk about it. We never want you to show it until it's ready, and then you have to show the stretch. But my question, and a question is important for us, because we ask all our artists this. So think about a past, a past one that's finished. How did you feel after all the effort, and design, and thinking, and experiments, and failures, and successes? How did think when it was done? What was your feeling?
Iris van Herpen [00:40:58] This is a bit of a depressing answer, but usually when a collection is finished or a project is finished, I don't necessarily feel satisfied. Maybe that's part of the reason that I focus more and more on the process itself, because once something is finished it's finished. And maybe that's because of my... My own perfectionism, I don't know, but I usually see the things that still need to evolve or I think could have been better. And it's specifically that energy I think that also keeps me going. I don't know what happens if at one point I'll make the perfect collection that makes me so happy. That I don't know how to move on, I think the slight disappointment that I feel when something is finished might make me stronger in the end. But it's not a character feature that I'm very happy with. I do think it's also still something that I need to learn to. Yeah, I don't know, to enjoy when I have to let go of it.
Speaker 2 [00:42:42] I tell you, that's what we feel that way, and it's been shared by almost every artist we've asked. Oh really? Yeah, we, I don't know if you know Danny Rosen, do you know his work? No. He does, they're kind of mirrors, he calls them, and he'll, they have a camera in them and they'll be like, They're interactive, they are interactive, yeah. Interactive, and they can show you your silhouette, it's kind of remarkable.
Speaker 4 [00:43:02] Nice.
Speaker 2 [00:43:04] I said, how do you feel in an opening? Everybody thinks that you're having a good time and you've got your glass of wine, so it's depressing because the heart no longer has any potential. The potential has been realized or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 5 [00:43:18] Yeah. I'll tell you the one good one. Sometimes the good thing about it is that later on, you can look back at some of your work. And as I've done, right, and even though I'm never satisfied with what everyone's done, later on you can look it back at it again. Isn't that right?
Speaker 6 [00:43:33] It wasn't there.
Speaker 2 [00:43:38] This is a question that we can't film you after the retrospective at the museum in Paris, but that would be the question to ask you.
Iris van Herpen [00:43:46] But my dreams are always so big. It's just the reality of our reality is never as free as what I have in my mind. I think I would need a different planet. I don't know. To really materialize everything that is in my mind, but at the same time, it's, yeah, it is a... It's also an important energy. I think some frustration is also really part of the creative motivation.
Speaker 2 [00:44:32] Do you have to push yourself? I mean, your stuff is amazing, okay, and every year, every collection is presumably an improvement or pushing another part of the envelope, but that's enormous pressure also.
Speaker 4 [00:44:50] Yeah, um...
Speaker 2 [00:44:54] And you're not an art student anymore who can just put stuff out there and not worry.
Iris van Herpen [00:45:00] No, but that's why it's so important to still embrace failure, indeed, because the higher the expectations, the lesser space you have for those failures. And they are so important. So it's definitely something that I had to learn along the way to keep on valuing those mistakes and to take time for them as well. That's really so important and. The higher the stakes are and the more pressure on the expectations there is, the more you have to tell yourself that ultimately the freedom of your creative process is the real luxury in life and once you start making things for the expectations of others, then I think you lose the essence of everything that you are and that you do. It's so easy to lose yourself. I think it's an ongoing lesson in life as as a creator is how to not lose yourself, how to stay true to your... Purest curiosity that is probably the starting point of it all.
Speaker 5 [00:46:35] It's sort of the question. We were talking about materials. When I see you playing, talking, working with your materials, it looks like you're having a conversation with it. It almost looks like your sort of getting something from it that you are then responding to it. Is that how you work? Is that the intuitive process?
Iris van Herpen [00:46:59] No it's true, craftsmanship is really a language of my hands and it's a very intuitive dialog and it really responds to the pure form of art, the art of dancing, it's that same intuitive language of giving and taking. And it's a similar dialog that I have with my materials and the way I play with them.
Speaker 2 [00:47:36] The dancing. You've also talked about your art, your work, a lot of it requires movement, to really be fully realized. Could you just tell me that back, because we've seen such examples, but we're going to see it on video at some point, but right now it's not.
Iris van Herpen [00:47:59] If I have to describe my work in one word, which obviously is impossible, but if I have two, then it is movement. It's the essence of everything that I make. It's about the transformation of our own body and the influence between, or the dialog between our minds and our bodies. And it's... There is such a powerful experience in expressing your identity through such a personal form of art. And it really can be a... Tool for change. So I noticed how many people underestimate the power of the language within fashion and that is really I think one of the reasons that I am creating in this discipline because I think a lot of people understand the of a painting. Or the power of a piece of music, but not everyone realizes how much we can talk to each other through the pieces that we wear. They are really a intermedium between our inner worlds towards our environment. And yeah, I find it really important to highlight this and that's why I need to channel. The sources of inspiration from dance to music to science into this medium.
Speaker 2 [00:50:06] We asked you about a couple of people you collaborated with over the years that we also have some encounters with. First one is Paul Friedle.
Iris van Herpen [00:50:15] Lovely, yeah. Paul Friedlander. I collaborated with a few years back and I really love the transformation in his work on color. That was the most fascinating for me. We've looked at some of the layering within my work and how I try to... Bring life into the colors and the prints that I'm working with. I do that for example through layering and then the movement of the body expressing the transformations. He really has living paintings. It's color in transformation in such a speed. That you are just completely hypnotized by looking at it. And I also really love the way he includes science into his approach and we've had some really beautiful conversations on our own disciplines and he was one of those people that I could feel the passion and his... Dedication into all of the pieces he has created. And again, they are so personal and so complex that they've just really captivated me.
Speaker 2 [00:51:57] Hi, I'm Anthony Howe.
Iris van Herpen [00:51:59] You've talked to him as well? Ah, lovely. Wow. Nice. It's just coincidence. I mean, you turned it down and you're working with him. When were you there? I'm curious.
Speaker 6 [00:52:09] Oh, you're here.
Iris van Herpen [00:52:10] A year ago, okay. Because with Anthony I've never been, I must say. I still would like to go there at some point, but we've done the whole collaboration through the internet basically, through email and through calls. We did meet in Italy and of course in Paris because he came to build the sculpture. But other than that, yeah, I haven't been able to.
Speaker 2 [00:52:42] He's a little eccentric, I will say. I'm kidding, I'm not kidding. I mean, they both are. It's kind of interesting, both men, and obviously other people we've talked to, but they're both very, you know, we talked about obsession. Yeah. And they both, in different ways, they're different persons.
Iris van Herpen [00:52:59] I was mesmerized by Anthony. He works day and night and what he did for that show was incredible. He made everything by hand in such volume and complexity. He first really modeled everything on the computer and I still can't believe he managed to do that in time. Yeah, his dedication to his work is really beyond human. I think he's from a different planet for sure, yeah.
Speaker 7 [00:53:43] Let's see, if there's anything else, we can let you go, but let's forget this, there's always one more thing.
Speaker 2 [00:53:55] Oh yeah, I have one more question because it has to do with our theme. You seem to have learned about the engineering side of things. Things together and doing stuff as a child, or is that something that you learned in later life?
Iris van Herpen [00:54:18] As a child, I really grew up in nature, so I was outside all the time, so exploration has been really part of my upbringing. I've been triggered to discover just the processes around me from a very early age. I definitely was working with my hands a lot already. When I was young, but not so much technically, like of course now my work is quite technical as well, even though it's intuitive. Parts of the process are quite complicated, so the technicality has become a bigger part of the processes for sure, but I really think it's, in the essence, it's actually my natural environment when I grew up, that is the source for... The engineering today, interestingly enough.
