Renowned Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen has joined forces with historic champagne house Maison Perrier-Jouët for a groundbreaking multidisciplinary collaboration that explores the natural world through the lens of cymatics. By capturing the acoustic vibrations of the champagne house’s historic vineyards and translating them into tangible, visual patterns, van Herpen has created a series of striking sculptural designs and limited-edition bottle collections. The collaboration seamlessly bridges avant-garde couture, scientific exploration, and the enduring legacy of the Art Nouveau movement, offering a multisensory meditation on the invisible forces that connect all living things.
The partnership stems from a shared reverence for the natural world, a foundational ethos for both van Herpen’s visionary design house and Maison Perrier-Jouët. In December 2025, this mutual appreciation was officially recognized when van Herpen was named the inaugural recipient of the Perrier-Jouët Design for Nature Award. Rather than merely drawing aesthetic inspiration from flora and fauna, van Herpen sought to investigate the deeper, unseen rhythms that sustain the vineyards of Champagne.
To achieve this, the designer traveled to the champagne house’s prestigious vineyards located in the French villages of Ambonnay and Cramant. There, she recorded the ambient sounds of the terroir—capturing the acoustic footprint of the soil, vines, and surrounding ecosystem. These soundwaves were then explored using cymatics, a scientific technique that visualizes acoustic vibrations by demonstrating how sound frequencies create intricate geometric patterns when channeled through materials such as water, sand, or powder.
"The world is not only visual but vibrational—woven together by invisible forces that connect all living things," says van Herpen, highlighting the conceptual foundation of her latest undertaking. This fascination with how invisible phenomena manifest in physical forms has long defined her career, consistently pushing the boundaries where science, technology, and traditional craftsmanship intersect.
Art Nouveau Influences Shape the Belle Époque 1988 Sculpture
The fruits of this acoustic research form the basis of "Symphonic Bloom," a masterwork sculpture designed to encase a rare jeroboam of Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque 1988. Crafted meticulously from silk and recycled 22-carat gold, the sculpture unfurls dynamically from the neck of the bottle, featuring organic, fluid contours derived directly from van Herpen’s cymatics investigations.
The sculptural design also emerged from an ongoing dialogue between the designer and Sévérine Frerson, the cellar master of Maison Perrier-Jouët. Together, they discussed the alchemy of winemaking and how the complex flavors of champagne evolve and mature over time. The upward, swirling momentum of the gold and silk forms echoes several historical and artistic touchstones. Most notably, it recalls the sweeping, organic costumes of pioneering modern dancer Loïe Fuller, whose expressive movements heavily influenced the Art Nouveau aesthetic. Furthermore, the design draws inspiration from an antique Art Nouveau lamp crafted by Raoul Larche, which resides within the champagne house’s private collection at Maison Belle Époque in Épernay.
By intertwining the visual language of Art Nouveau—known for its preference for whiplash lines, asymmetrical curves, and botanical motifs—with contemporary scientific visualization, van Herpen has created a physical manifestation of the champagne’s aging process and terroir.
Symphonic Life and the Belle Époque 2018 Champagne Edition
The collaboration extends further with "Symphonic Life," a strictly limited edition comprising just ten individual pieces. Each work features a magnum of Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque 1999, encased in intricate designs fashioned from recycled 22-carat gold that build upon the organic geometries established in Symphonic Bloom.
In addition to these monumental sculptural editions, van Herpen collaborated closely with cellar master Sévérine Frerson on a special-release bottle and presentation box for Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque 2018. The exterior design borrows textural cues from a diverse palette of materials, including metal, wood, silk, and velvet, translating tactile sensations into packaging. Working in tandem with van Herpen’s design philosophy, Frerson adjusted the champagne’s dosage to accentuate its natural floral notes and velvety texture, creating a harmonious alignment between the visual art and the liquid inside.
"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 resulting collection made its global debut at Tokyo Gendai in September 2026. Following its Asian premiere, the works were showcased in Paris during Maison Perrier-Jouët’s exclusive "Banquet of Nature" event held at The Peninsula Paris on October 21st, ahead of an upcoming presentation at Design Miami in December 2026.
