This season, Iris van Herpen celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of her Maison with ‘Meta Morphism,’ a collection that explores “the depths of the body in posthuman realities.”

“With the new realms of our digital lives expanding, we are faced with an eternally rhetorical question: who are we beyond our physical bodies?,” the designer says.

Through 'Meta Morphism’, Van Herpen expresses the body as an elusive system, a body in a state of permanent flux, metamorphosing with the milieu.

While the Maison is regarded for its futuristic approach, this season the designer reflects on Ovid's magnus opus poem ‘Metamorphoses’, written around the 8th century. At the time of Ovid’s writing, the act of metamorphosis was appreciated in relation to humanity and its place amongst nature, yet Ovid’s retelling exists a relevance today, says Van Herpen.

The collection is built around three myths, the story of Arachne; the story of Narcissus and finally the story of Daphne and Apollo.

Arachne – a masterly weaver who challenges the goddess of Athena – is transformed into a spider through shame, to hang from an eternal thread. In the collection, the tragedy of Arachne is translated in fine laces that are gradient dyed and trapped in embroidered webs, causing the trapped spiderwebs to float. Other looks are designed as if Arachne is still weaving them, hundreds of unspun threads float and spin around the body.

The second myth behind the collection recalls the story of Narcissus, who falls in love with his own reflection, slowly languishing to death through self-obsession. The shows opening look, the long white ‘Narcissus’ coat is embroidered with an artwork of echoing faces that shift while interlocked. The portraits become glitchy and seem to slowly melt away. The ‘Narcissus’ gown and coat express the power of self-creation and the contradiction of how self-obsession can ultimatly cause loosing your sense of self.

The third poem to the designer’s ensemble recounts the relationship between Daphne and Apollo. A tale of objectification, Daphne was the first love of the god Apollo, but met with unrequited affection, a parable of lust in the face of rejection. The allusion to Daphne and Apollo is betokened through the finale look, embodying the very moment that Daphne transforms into a laurel tree, while the 'Glitched Growth' dress and other looks mimic the alternate stages of Daphne’s metamorphoses, diffusing the creation of plant and bone structures growing together. In keeping with the Maison’s collaborative spirit, this season, Iris van Herpen partners with sculptor Casey Curran, who created a Daphne’s sculpture for the runway