Iris van Herpen is making a collective garment at the Brooklyn Museum, Trump’s Smithsonian warpath, and Rice University goes tuition-free for many. Case in point: Livia Caligor got up close and personal with Iris van Herpen, one of the coolest fashion designers out there — you might be familiar with her dress made out of thousands of hand-formed, iridescent glass bubbles, which Olympic skier Eileen Gu wore to the 2026 Met Gala. At the Brooklyn Museum, visitors can join van Herpen in creating a garment that will evolve over the course of the exhibition. —Lisa Yin Zhang, associate editorThe Day I Pleated With Iris van Herpen “Hands are like a language,” Iris van Herpen says as we pleat a textile together inside the recreated atelier at the center of Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses. “I want to share the most beautiful part of my work — the craftsmanship — in a really intimate setting,” van Herpen tells Hyperallergic in an interview.