Renowned Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen has embarked on a multidisciplinary collaboration with historic champagne house Maison Perrier-Jouët, merging the worlds of high couture, fine winemaking, and natural science. For this visionary project, van Herpen turned her creative lens toward the lush vineyards of Champagne, capturing ambient sounds and translating them into tangible visual patterns using cymatics. The resulting body of work explores the unseen vibrational forces that animate the natural world, breathing new life into the historic design heritage of the champagne house.
The collaboration began in December 2025, when van Herpen was named the inaugural recipient of the prestigious Perrier-Jouët Design for Nature Award. Known for her pioneering integration of advanced technology, sustainable materials, and organic motifs, the designer found a natural kindred spirit in Maison Perrier-Jouët. The champagne house has long been defined by its deep ties to the Art Nouveau movement, an artistic philosophy that celebrates the fluid, sinuous lines and intricate geometries found in flora and fauna. By bridging her contemporary scientific methodologies with the house’s storied artistic lineage, van Herpen has created a series of collectible editions that honor both the environment and the craft of champagne making.
Exploring Nature Through Cymatics
At the heart of van Herpen’s creative process for the collaboration was an exploration of cymatics—a scientific technique that makes sound waves visible by demonstrating how acoustic vibrations create geometric patterns in physical materials such as water, sand, or powder. Seeking to uncover the hidden language of the terroir, the designer travelled to Maison Perrier-Jouët’s historic vineyards in Ambonnay and Cramant, where she recorded the natural sounds of the landscape.
"The world is not only visual but vibrational—woven together by invisible forces that connect all living things," says van Herpen, summarizing the philosophical foundation of the project.
This fascination with invisible rhythms is a hallmark of van Herpen’s broader career, where she consistently bridges the gap between science and organic form to reveal structures that often escape the naked eye. By utilizing the cymatic patterns derived from the vineyards, she established a visual lexicon that would inform every physical piece in the collection. These wave-like frequencies and biological geometries served as blueprints for intricate sculptures crafted from sustainable materials, including silk and recycled 22-carat gold, which were then integrated with rare and exceptional vintages from the champagne house’s reserves.
Art Nouveau Influences and the Belle Époque 1988 Sculpture
The pinnacle of this artistic union is embodied in Symphonic Bloom, a breathtaking sculptural piece that gracefully surrounds a rare jeroboam of Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque 1988. Rising dynamically from the slender neck of the bottle, the sculpture features complex, organic forms directly derived from van Herpen’s cymatics research in the vineyards. Fabricated from delicate silk and gleaming recycled 22-carat gold, the piece captures a sense of perpetual motion and organic growth.
The creation of Symphonic Bloom was also informed by extensive dialogues between van Herpen and Séverine Frerson, the cellar master of Maison Perrier-Jouët. Together, the two creators discussed the intricate ways in which the flavors and aromas of champagne evolve and mature over time, drawing parallels between the maturation of wine and the developmental rhythms of nature.
Visually, the sculpture’s upward, cascading movement pays homage to multiple historical touchstones. It evokes the flowing, diaphanous costumes of pioneering modern dancer Loïe Fuller, a monumental figure in the Art Nouveau era whose performances celebrated natural movement. Furthermore, the design draws direct inspiration from an iconic Art Nouveau lamp by artist Raoul Larche, housed within the champagne house’s historical collection at Maison Belle Époque in Épernay. Through these deliberate nods, van Herpen places her avant-garde vision in direct dialogue with the foundational aesthetics of the Belle Époque period.
Symphonic Life and the Belle Époque 2018 Champagne Edition
Building upon the narrative established by Symphonic Bloom, van Herpen expanded the collaboration with Symphonic Life, a strictly limited edition comprising ten individual works. Each piece features a magnum of Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque 1999, encased in intricate, wrap-around gold sculptures crafted from recycled 22-carat gold. These designs further refine the organic, wave-inspired shapes introduced earlier in the project, creating a seamless visual continuity across the collection.
In tandem with these sculptural works, van Herpen collaborated closely with cellar master Séverine Frerson on a dedicated cuvée: a special edition of Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque 2018, featuring a completely redesigned bottle and custom gift box. The packaging takes tactile cues from the rich textures of metal, wood, silk, and velvet—elements that mirror both van Herpen’s multidisciplinary design vocabulary and the sensory complexity of the wine itself.
To complement the aesthetic redesign, Frerson adjusted the dosage of the 2018 vintage, carefully fine-tuning the liquid to accentuate the cuvée’s vibrant floral notes and velvety texture.
"The floral signature of Perrier-Jouët is born from a deep connection with nature and a continual search for elegance and nuance," notes Frerson. "Through our dialogue with Iris van Herpen, we explored texture as a shared language, from the tactile qualities of her work to the layered sensations that define an exceptional champagne."
The culmination of this partnership made its global debut at Tokyo Gendai in September 2026, capturing the attention of international art and design collectors. The collection was subsequently showcased during Maison Perrier-Jouët’s exclusive Banquet of Nature at The Peninsula Paris on October 21, before preparing for its upcoming exhibition at Design Miami in December 2026. Through this union of cymatic science, sustainable couture, and master winemaking, van Herpen and Perrier-Jouët have successfully translated the silent, invisible poetry of the vineyard into a lasting sensory legacy.
