Iris van Herpen (1984)

“The essence of my label is the fusion between fashion and art through my personal vision. I hope my work will inspire both the jury and the audience, as taking part in this Award show will certainly be a stimulating experience for me.”

With her London Fashion Week debut on September 19 this year, showing her monumental ‘couture’ collection off schedule at the Royal Festival Hall, Iris van Herpen caused quite a storm. Raving response by influential fashion editors from titles like Vogue, Vanity Fair and Dazed & Confused, and an on the spot offer to show at Harrods, prove her conceptual and impressively laborious sculptures to be less outlandish than they seem. Iris van Herpen’s strong experimental direction never overwrites her feel for feminine elegance, but contributes a wildly imaginative and futuristic proposal to contemporary fashion aesthetics. Materializing her fascination for both ancient and forward minded visions about the human condition, Iris van Herpen explores highly unorthodox materials such as high tech fabrics and industrial yarns, sheer woven metal, pressed gold foil, motor bicycle chains and a variety of illusively treated leather in artful techniques inspired by shoemaking crafts. The work of Iris van Herpen may rise well above and beyond the usual realms of mass manufactured fashion; fact is fashion wants a part of it, and with her limited, made to order ranges they can indeed.

Academy of Dutch Fashion Design

To gain an indirect, objective and independent vote the Dutch Fashion Foundation has invited a select group of national decision makers and key-players with a cultural and economical background into the Academy of Dutch Fashion Design. The members of the Academy have all individually listed their top ten of most promising Dutch fashion designers, with a result of 28 designers. Looking at the ranking in which they were chosen and the criteria set up for this award, a selection was formed of 10 designers.

Members of the Academy of Dutch Fashion Design: Amsterdam International Fashion Week - Arnhem Fashion Biënnale - Dutch Fashion Foundation - Fonds voor Beeldende Kunst Vormgeving en Bouwkunst - HTNK - Intres – Klavers van Engelen - Modefabriek - MODINT – Monique van Heist - Prins Bernard Foundation - World Fashion Centre

International pre-jury From an international point of view the precommittee members of the jury Marc Gysemans (Gysemans Clothing Industry, Belgium), Valentina Maggi (headhunter luxury brands; director of Design Practice at Floriane de Saint-Pierre & Associés, Paris), and Diane Pernet (talentscout and journalist A Shaded View on Fashion, Paris) then choose the 5 finalists for the Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Awards 2009. These designers will be presented to the full international jury on November 6th.

Regulations

Each fashion designer to participate in the Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Awards is selected by the criteria that he/she: 

- is graduated from an (inter)national fashion academy, 
- has the Dutch nationality, 
- has its own registered enterprise, 
- has developed at least five collections under his/her own label, 
- has distinguished talent, a unique style and knows
to present this convincingly, 
- has already taken strategic steps to imbed in the international fashion field.