The Divine Beauty of Hard Science at Iris van Herpen Fall 2026 Couture

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Iris van Herpen doesn’t design clothes. She is an artist who conducts scientific experiments through the medium of clothing, creating gowns out of solids, liquids, gas, and even living matter. And this season, out of plasma. Star stuff. The interstellar medium. The fourth state of matter that makes up fire and lightening and the aurora borealis. And now, thanks to her experiments, some of the most breathtaking fashion the world has ever seen.

“For years, I have been drawn to the idea of creating a garment woven from energy alone,” said van Herpen in the notes for her Fall 2026 Couture show, which walked the Runway on Paris yesterday. “This is the first time we have worked with the fourth state of matter, plasma. Glass and tulle still hold it to the earth, but we are one step closer to couture that exists as atmosphere alone.”

The collection is called “Sonic Starquakes” and draws inspiration from sonic vibrating stars, the branching structures of exploding supernovae, the spiraling geometries of galaxies, and the turbulence of plasma.

Standouts in the collection include the Helix Nebula dress, which is comprised of two sculpturally floating lunar forms of hand-blown glass infused with plasma that respond to human touch. Surrounding it are 10,000 hand-blown glass spheres that graduate in size and are seamlessly attached to illusion tulle with UV light. When the Nebula dress is worn, the body becomes a conductor of the plasma’s electrical field, altering and interacting with it. As a result, the dress momentarily incorporates the body into its electromagnetic system. The body and dress become one. Its deep nebula-red glow arises from electrons shifting between energy levels and releasing photons at precise wavelengths. Bringing plasma into the realm of couture for the first time.

Another look, titled Fractal Universe, explores the thresholds between body and atmosphere, matter and energy. Days before the show, the dress was charged inside a particle accelerator and cryogenically preserved. This transformed the dress into a metastable reservoir of energy, containing billions of trapped electrons that generate an intense electric field held within its structure. The original intent was for the model to discharge the dress on the runway, allowing branching flashes of lightning to complete the final act of its creation. Instead, in the nights leading up to the show, the garment began to complete the final act on its own accord. Fractal constellations of light spread across its surface as the lightning vaporized and etched microscopic hollow channels through its three-dimensional structure at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. What initially seemed like a deviation from the plan became the collection’s most profound embodiment. “By escaping human control, the charged electrons within the garment determined its final expression, completing the creation through an invisible, universal force,” said van Herpen, “[so that the] final gesture of its creation belonged not to the hand of the maker, but to an elemental force woven into the fabric of the cosmos itself.”

More traditional materials were utilized as well. Velvets were laser cut into undulating motifs that bisect the body vertically, their contours continuing across the skin in delicate hand embroidery to create a subtle trompe l’œil effect. Flowy chiffons and organzas were hand-pleated into sweeping half-wheels and suspended within moon-curved bonings of laser-cut carbon fibre, allowing the drapery to drift like invisible energy fields. While the collection’s palette traversed the hues of the night sky, moving from midnight black and sapphire through cobalt and moonstone green to nebula red and storm-lit silver.

“Around us, and within us, vast dimensions of reality remain undiscovered,” said van Herpen. “From lightning to the charged environments of particle accelerators, this collection gives form to forces that rarely reveal themselves. I do not seek to explain them; instead, they heighten our awareness of the unknown, reminding us of the mysteries that lie within this multiverse.”

Check out the rest of the collection below.