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Object Timeline

  • We acquired this object.

2013

  • Work on this object began.

2016

2025

  • You found it!

Dress, from Wilderness Embodied Couture collection

This is a Dress. It was designed by Jólan van der Wiel and Iris van Herpen.

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from Iris van Herpen as part of Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial.

It is dated 2013. Its medium is resin, iron filings.

Van Herpen is known for experimenting with beauty, technology, and the human body. She often collaborates with artists from other disciplines. She worked with Jólan van der Wiel to design this prickly, primordial dress (and matching pair of shoes) using van der Wiel’s gravity machine, a device that harnesses the forces of gravity and magnetism to create wildly irregular composite materials from iron filings and resin.

It is credited Courtesy of Iris van Herpen.

  • Textile (France)
  • silk.
  • Anonymous bequest in memory of Albert and Rebecca Elsberg.
  • 1938-82-201
  •

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This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial.

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-4.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/69192435/ |title=Dress, from Wilderness Embodied Couture collection |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=5 February 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>