Iris Van Herpen's fashion show in Paris in January 2018 saw the powerful combination of Iris Van Herpen and Peter Gentenaar, two leaders in the design and sculpture worlds. This time, the two artists collaborated again in Suzhou Center to present a visual feast for the audience.

Following the original inspiration, Dutch fashion designer Iris Van Herpen collaborated with Dutch artist Peter Gentenaar, who is good at creating exquisite large-scale paper sculptures to capture "ecological memory" and rhythm. For this Biennale, Peter's paper sculptures floated around the dresses like flowers.

The dresses created by Iris Van Herpen using 3D printing technology have clear structures and strong sculptural forms, which are consistent with Peter's shaping art. Essentially, like PETER's pulp, the material is formed into a unique and hidden form in the artist's mind. This expression is very intimate to the artist himself and is their most unique interpretation of fashion.

Fan Bingbing once wore a high-end fashion designed by Iris Van Herpen at the "Scream Night", which once caused a huge response among Chinese audiences. This dress is also in the collection.

Peter Gentenaar was born in Rijswijk, the Netherlands, in 1946. As a young man, he drew gory cartoons and designed cars and battleships. In high school, he participated in puppet theater and made puppets with his drawing teacher, Tonk Dragt, an artist and author of children's books. The sixties were a time of endless possibilities. Peter studied drawing, painting, sculpture and printmaking at the Free Academy in The Hague. The following year, he went to California, USA, and studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, where he received a master's degree in printmaking.

Peter's paper is made of long fibers such as hemp, cotton and linen, which are relatively slender compared to wood fibers. When these fibers are beaten in a "Dutchman" beater, the chains of fibrils that make them up are broken up. Water fills the gaps between these microscopic fibers, but does not change the fiber's properties. The fibrils float in the water, and when the water is exhausted, they combine in a new arrangement, and a sheet of paper is formed. If the paper is not flattened, it will start to curl: the fibers remember the coiled plant life forms of their past. Under pressure, this property is limited, but Peter prefers to use this material to shape his works.

"Many paper artists see their relationship with paper as a "paper path". My paper path took me into an intimate relationship with the fibers, while other paper artists became more familiar with the flat paper produced in the factory. Their paper art trajectories are very different, but they are all inspired by paper and have infinite possibilities. At first, paper is a surprise to the creator in you, inviting you to explore it along its winding path. You are an artist, but as you create, your material becomes your partner and the winding path becomes a long and difficult journey, a road of exploration into the multifaceted nature of paper." - Peter Gentenaar

Iris Van Herpen is a Dutch fashion designer, widely regarded as one of the most talented and forward-thinking creators in the fashion industry, who continues to push the boundaries of fashion design. Since her debut in 2007, Iris Van Herpen has been committed to inventing new forms and methods of expression by fusing the most traditional and radical materials and garment construction methods into her unique aesthetic vision. She calls this design ethos "New Couture".

Iris Van Herpen is known as a pioneer in the use of 3D printing technology for garment construction, and due to the sculptural nature of her work and its idiosyncratic forms, this innovator prefers technology as one of the guiding principles of her creations. Her design intention is to combine the past and the future into a unique present by fusing modern technology and traditional couture craftsmanship.

Her extraordinary vision and the complexity of her creations have made her a regular guest at fashion weeks since she showed at Paris Haute Couture Week since January 2011.

Iris's work has been featured in various museum exhibitions, including a major retrospective that has been touring the United States since 2015 (starting with a 6-month exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta). Six of her dresses are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and another seven were exhibited in the hugely successful “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology” show in 2016. Iris’s work has also been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York, and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, among others.