Iris Van Herpen "Biopiracy" - Paris Fashion Week - who owns our genes? Fashion, Biotechnology and Intellectual Property

On Tuesday, last week Iris van Herpen unveiled her Biopiracy Collection, her most ambitious and largest collection to date, at Les Docks - Cité de la Mode et du Design in Paris. Called “Biopiracy” The collection by Iris Van Herpen threw a spotlight on the intersection of intellectual property, ethics and biotechnology.  The designer writes on the invitation for the showcase of her collection,

“In the recent past, patents on our genes have been purchased. Are we still the sole proprietor of our bodies? From this question arises a sense of arrested freedom in one's most intimate, solitary state. …” 

For the show, the experimental designer collaborated with artist Lawrence Malstaf, a specialist in the interaction between biology and physicality, too construct an installation, where models were suspended in the air in embryonic transparent, seemingly weightless plastic and shrink vacuum packs. Calling into question the naturalness of systems such as IP that allow for the ownership of living substances occurring in nature, such as our DNA & genes, through the legal mechanism of a patent.

 “Biopiracy” is a term well known in the legal world, that has emerged to describe a practice that concerns the ways that corporations from the developed world claim ownership of, or otherwise take unfair advantage of, the genetic resources and traditional knowledge and technologies of developing countries, and biological, scientific and cultural assets are “pirated” commodified and then commercially exploited usually without compensating the individuals, indigenous peoples or countries from which the material or relevant knowledge is extracted or harvested.

Her collection gets us to think about the intersection of nature, science, IP and social justice.