The most ambitious fashion exhibition of New York’s spring is also one of its strangest. “Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses” opened at the Brooklyn Museum on May 16, 2026 — the North American debut of a touring retrospective devoted to the Dutch couturier — gathering more than 140 of her creations, including a dress that is, in a literal sense, alive.

A career in couture

Iris van Herpen, who showed her first collection in 2007, has spent nearly two decades pushing haute couture toward science fiction, pioneering 3D-printed garments, laser-cut forms and collaborations with architects, biologists and engineers. “Sculpting the Senses” traces that body of work across more than 140 pieces, organized thematically around water, marine biology, morphogenesis, outer space and human perception. The garments are shown not in isolation but in dialogue with contemporary art and design by figures including Philip Beesley, Rogan Brown, Casey Curran, Kim Keever and Nick Knight, alongside scientific artifacts and natural-history specimens — coral, fossils and skeletons among them.

The living dress

The exhibition’s signature object is a 2025 “living look” embedded with roughly 125 million bioluminescent algae, a garment engineered to glow. Other pieces draw on jellyfish and coral, and several have appeared on the red carpet and on stage, worn by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Grimes. To deepen the natural-history framing, the show incorporates coral specimens borrowed from the American Museum of Natural History across the river in Manhattan — an institutional pairing that underlines van Herpen’s insistence that her real source material is the natural world.

A well-traveled show makes a Brooklyn stop

“Sculpting the Senses” originated at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, where it debuted in 2023, and has since traveled to the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art in Australia, Singapore’s ArtScience Museum and Kunsthal Rotterdam before reaching New York. The Brooklyn presentation — the show’s North American debut — is organized by Matthew Yokobosky, the museum’s Senior Curator of Fashion and Material Culture, with curatorial assistant Imani Williford. Yokobosky is the curator behind the Brooklyn Museum’s recent run of blockbuster fashion and design shows, a programming strategy that has reliably drawn crowds to Eastern Parkway.

The season’s fashion anchor

The van Herpen show gives Brooklyn its marquee summer exhibition and slots into a packed New York museum calendar that already includes MoMA’s Marcel Duchamp retrospective and MoMA PS1’s “Greater New York 2026.” For a museum that turned 200 in its bicentennial year, a futuristic, science-fused fashion survey is a fitting statement of where it wants its profile to be.

“Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses” is on view at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, through January 3, 2027.

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Frequently Asked Questions

When is the Iris van Herpen show at the Brooklyn Museum?
'Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses' is on view May 16, 2026, through January 3, 2027, at the Brooklyn Museum.
What's in the exhibition?
More than 140 haute couture creations spanning van Herpen's career, shown with contemporary art, scientific artifacts and natural-history specimens, including a 2025 'living' dress embedded with roughly 125 million bioluminescent algae.
Where did the exhibition originate?
It was organized by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, where it debuted in 2023, and has toured internationally; Brooklyn is its North American debut.
Who organized the Brooklyn presentation?
Matthew Yokobosky, the Brooklyn Museum's Senior Curator of Fashion and Material Culture, with curatorial assistant Imani Williford.