Dutch footwear label United Nude returns to the runway of Iris van Herpen, unveiling four custom footwear designs for the designer’s Fall/Winter 2026 couture collection, “Sonic Starquakes.” It marks the first collaboration between the two houses since 2014.
Each piece brings together sculptural design, cutting-edge 3D printing, and laser-cut craftsmanship — blurring the boundaries between fashion, technology, and the work of the hand.
Summary
- United Nude and Iris van Herpen present four custom footwear designs for the Fall/Winter 2026 couture collection “Sonic Starquakes”
- It is the first collaboration between the two since 2014
- Each piece fuses sculptural design with advanced 3D printing and laser-cut craftsmanship
- The four styles are The Bubble Shoe, The Lichtenberg (Lightning), The Chain Shoe and The Edge X
- The work blurs the boundaries between fashion, technology and craft
The Bubble Shoe
Soap bubbles are rendered as detail across the surface of a heelless shoe — a silhouette that has become a signature of United Nude.
The Lichtenberg (Lightning)
A glass heel built on the motif of lightning, its branching, electrical forms caught and refracted within the material.
The Chain Shoe
Another heelless design, this time worked with fine chains that trace the contours of the foot.
The Edge X
A United Nude staple, reinterpreted through the language of Iris van Herpen’s couture collection.
Where Fashion, Technology and Craft Meet
Across all four styles, sculptural form is achieved through the meeting of advanced digital fabrication and hand craftsmanship — a shared territory the two houses have explored since their first collaboration more than a decade ago. Iris van Herpen has built her couture on a continuing exploration of science, nature, and technology, and for Fall/Winter 2026, “Sonic Starquakes” takes the vibration of stars as its starting point, letting advanced processes such as 3D printing and laser cutting meet the delicate work of the hand within a single garment. United Nude’s four shoes carry that vision down to the foot — a reminder of how inseparably fashion, technology, and craft are bound together in her couture.
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