It’s Alive! Iris Van Herpen’s Latest Innovation? A Dress Made From 125 Million Bioluminescent Algae

As fittings were underway on Saturday, Van Herpen and her latest collaborator, Chris Bellamy, gave Vogue a preview of the creation. Like some kind of otherworldly specimen on display, the dress and legging ensemble hung inside a box carefully controlled with light—exactly the wavelength where the algae are found 50 meters below sea level—and humidity, with a cloud of cold steam pooling around the base.

Photo: Molly SJ Lowe/ Courtesy of Iris Van Herpen

Photo: Molly SJ Lowe/ Courtesy of Iris Van Herpen

In this daylight setting, the dimensional pattern was not illuminated, but milky white with a trace of blue; an imperfect comparison might be glow-in-the-dark stickers that have a greenish tinge. Like humans, pyrocystis lunula need ‘sleep’ and have their own light cycles like our Circadian rhythms. In the wild, they emit light in response to movement and/or when they sense predators. No word yet who Van Herpen is casting to wear the look or how the model will provoke the flash of light.

Yet with Van Herpen standing on one side of the box and Bellamy on the other, they explained how they first connected in February, some two years after Bellamy began his research in French Polynesia (he still travels there while also working in France, the UK and Amsterdam, where Van Herpen is based).

Once they agreed to advance on the project, Bellamy got to work on the algae farm—essentially a chamber of controlled light where the microorganisms grow in seawater, doubling in quantity every two weeks. After enough time, there was 20 liters of algae—a little more than a half-filled bathtub. Going from a liquid state to a solid that could be injected into Van Herpen’s custom molds involved transferring the algae to a seaweed nutrient gel—some 50 were tested to arrive at the right texture, color, and overall balance—and coating the forms with a protective membrane that’s breathable and allows them to live and glow. In total, this turned into a roughly 35-step process with support from the University of Amsterdam and the Francis Crick Institute for biomedical research. After significant trial and error, not to mention attaching the pattern to an illusion mesh second skin, they said they reached the successful outcome—“it worked,” said Bellamy—about a month ago.

The garments are now stored according to precisely controlled conditions that correspond to the algae’s native environment, such as temperature, light, humidity and rhythm. The organisms can continue to mate and reproduce inside the garment forms, making the dress brighter and brighter. As for an odor, Bellamy replies, “No, you can just smell the seawater.”