A few days ago, the Haute Couture Fashion Show, Fall/Winter 2012, was held in Paris. It was sparkling and this time, a little bit different. Apart from the traditional couturiers showing in Paris, this time, they added two new designers to the couture calendar: the Italian Giambattista Valli and the Dutch designer Iris van Herpen.

The haute couture moment is usually dedicated to the fashion elites, designers that are able to push further the boundaries of fashion, in terms of style and hard labour on and around the dress. But couture, apart from the few clients around the world (who really afford it), also supposed to be la creme de la creme of the fashion dream. Something special and something really avantgarde, something not necessary linked to our everyday outfits, but something to challenge our ordinary view on clothes. At this point, I think Iris van Herpen is the right designer to keep an eye on.

Her debut collection on the couture fashion scene was not only popular and  hysterically acclaimed, but could be also regarded as a symbolic shift of perspective in the fashion world. It seems that the traditional couture establishment finally starts to embrace something New. In Herpen’s terms, this means futurism, new materials and new fashion techniques, as rapid prototyping, the use of plastic and rubber –  in order to achieve a brand new poetry of costume.  That’s more challenging than draping and cutting boring fabrics on the vintage tailor dummy, huh?