Sensory Seas: Morphogenesis Dress

The Morphogenesis Dress continues the longstanding collaboration between Philip Beesley and fashion designer Iris van Herpen. It was presented at Paris Fashion Week 2020 as part of Iris van Herpen’s S/S20 Sensory Seas collection. Sensory Seas aims to highlight the nuances between the anthropology of a marine organism and the role of dendrites and synapses delivering signals throughout our own bodies. The work underscores how these two processes of “torrential messaging” exist in an uninterrupted state of flux.

Drawing from geostrophic turbulence patterns, the Morphogenesis Dress is based on twisted vortex models visualized with three-dimensional modelling software. Grasshopper scripts were used to expedite the form-making processes of lofting, slicing, and nesting. Thousands of fine white screen-printing mesh layers were then numbered and sliced into three millimeter widths, and cut in layers by a large format laser-cutter. Each layer was finally embellished by hand with a grid of miniscule transparent chevrons, creating flexible forms which can expand and contract around the body, like a sensory sea of ebb and flow.

A Love Letter to Iris van Herpen’s Morphogenesis Dress