This dress was designed for Icelandic singer Björk to wear during her 2012 Biophilia tour. The design is based on van Herpen’s 2011 spring−summer Escapism collection (her first couture collection). This collection drew conceptually from feelings of emptiness, the grotesque and the fantastic, and aesthetically from the work of American artist Kris Kuksi. Like many of van Herpen’s works, Dress 2011 took several months to make and fuses machine and hand work to create the exaggerated forms.
Physical description
Sleeveless blue dress formed from semi-transparent acrylic sheets that have been hand and laser cut and mounted onto a tulle ground to create a shell-like shape. The dress fastens down centre back with a long metal zip. Depending on the angle of the light, the dress changes colour from a very dark blue to a reflective light blue.