The Canadian singer Grimes transformed into a Dune-inspired Bene Gesserit in a laser-cut dress the by designer Iris van Herpen, Monday, on the red carpet of the Metropolitan Museum of Art evening gala, in New York.

By Ludmilla Intravaia

Between Grimes and Iris van Herpen, it's a long artistic friendship (more info in this Boudoir Numérique article). No wonder then that the Canadian singer set her sights on a dress by the tech-savvy Dutch designer for her appearance in the spotlights of the annual gala of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monday, in New York.

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The laser-cut dress took 900 hours of work at Iris van Herpen's studio in Amsterdam that create a silhouette echoing Dune, the science fiction novels cycle by the American writer Frank Herbert, whose second cinema adaptation by Denis Villeneuve, after David Lynch in 1984, is being released in theaters today.

Iris van Herpen dress worn by Grimes on the MET Gala red carpet, on September 13, 2021, photographed in the designer's studio in Amsterdam (© Iris van Herpen)

As explained on the haute couture house's Instagram account, yesterday, the look "inspired by a distant future and the Bene Gesserit cult is made from silver liquid silicone that is hand-casted into a mirror finished laser-cut labyrinth”, while “from the intricate bodice, twenty-six meters of dramatically draped silk is intertwining through the mirrored waves, floating down organically to be hand pleated and gradient-dyed from white to black.”

Sketch of the Iris van Herpen dress worn by Grimes on the MET Gala red carpet, September 13, 2021 (© Iris van Herpen)

“Iris has been one of our favorites”, Grimes told Vogue US, before hitting the MET Gala red carpet: “ I just feel a kinship to women behind the computer. She is a technologist, you know? And I feel like she’s always been on another level. Like, to me she’s kind of got an argument for being the current era McQueen or something, she’s pushing the boundaries in a way that I don’t know if anyone is actually competing with her? We had offers to go with bigger people, but… the first thing she sent through, we were like, this is fucking fire.”

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Along with a luminous book, Grimes’s outfit is completed with metal elf ears from the Los Angeles-based jewelry designer Lillian Shalom and a metal mask from the American jewelry brand Chris Habana. Grimes also carries a 14th century European medieval sword replica from the permanent collection of the MET. It's forged from guns, as the artist explains on the red carpet in the video below.

Grimes is not the only one to have walked the red carpet at the MET Gala in an Iris van Herpen fashion tech dress. The actress Gabrielle Union has also succumbed to the innovative charms of the high-flying designer (more info in this Boudoir Numérique article). So is Tessa Thompson (more info here).