Adobe Remix: Iris van Herpen x Adobe
I led Adobe Remix, a program built around Creativity for All and Diverse Voices that works with artists who push the boundaries of what's possible: experimenting with technology to bring ideas to life and telling a compelling story of transformation. Earlier installments had asked artists for an expressive take on the Adobe "A" icon in their own style; I moved the program away from that constraint, opening it up instead to how the brand actually felt to artists and the real impact Adobe's tools had on their process. Michael Jarrott identified fashion designer, artist, and inventor Iris van Herpen as the right artist for that shift, and I briefed her directly on the collaboration.
Iris's work embodies the program's core principles, and in a male-dominated industry, the project let Adobe celebrate a woman-owned business working at the intersection of fashion and technology, one where Adobe's own tools are essential to her process and let her express her creativity in new, profound ways. As Iris put it: "My creative process is based on experiment and error, exploring new forms of craftsmanship that transform traditional Couture to new grounds of innovation through a multi-disciplinary approach of collaborations with artists, architects and scientists."
The creative brief asked Iris to create a custom dress in her own style that spoke to Adobe's influence on creativity and its community, to work red into the design as a nod to the Adobe brand, and to build it using the technique behind her Hypnosis Suminagashi dresses, an approach rooted in suminagashi, or "ink floating," one of the earliest forms of Japanese paper marbling, so that Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop could be part of her process.
The dress made its debut on the runway in 2021, when Iris, a friend of designer Alber Elbaz, was one of 45 designers from around the world invited to pay tribute to Elbaz's creative vision following his passing, and chose the Adobe collaboration as her contribution to the show. From there, the dress joined an Alber Elbaz tribute exhibition at the Palais Galliera, the Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, running March through July 2022 alongside looks from all 45 participating houses, before finding a permanent home at Adobe's office in Paris.
Credits
John Caponi / Senior Creative Director / Led Adobe Remix; reshaped the program's creative brief and briefed Iris van Herpen directly
Michael Jarrott / Adobe Creative Director / Identified Iris van Herpen as the artist for the collaboration
Julia Capeloto / Adobe Brand Strategy / Strategy partner; helped sell the program through
Dan Cowles / ECD, Adobe Video Team / Sparking Creativity in Fashion Video
