AFW

AFW

Unknown   08.50   Comment  

SIS by Spijkers & Spijkers

Truus and Riet Spijkers kicked off Amsterdam Fashion Week. The collection is inspired by the fifties with the young Brigitte Bardot as muse. A classic wardrobe with typical BB plaids, stripes, bare shoulders and wide skirts.

Claes Iversen

Claes Iversen showed a collection inspired by Dutch summer rain. The Danish designer played with diffrent layers, lengths and volumes with beaded sequins like a waterfall of raindrops.

Marga Weimans

Marga Weimans presents a more wearable collection this time, with a visible link to architecture and interior design. The designer worked with artist Jeroen Koolhaas, renowned for his work for Prada, on these particular prints.

Dorhout Mees

The inspiration of Dorhout Mees comes from a poetry album from 1800 that the designer recently inherited from her grandmother. Full of love, poetry, drawings and embroideries. All in great contrast with the time from now where we hardly have time for each other and personal contact seems strange.

Anne de Grijff

Anne Grijff makes her Fashion Week debut with a ​​collection inspired by Dutch regional dress. Especially the way in which housewives wore their clothing in the beginning of the 18th century. Women at that time folded their linens and laid it over tightly in the closet. This gave a certain kind of pattern. Therewith they showed the outside world where they came from and that they had a tidy household.

Winde Rienstra

Winde Rienstra found her inspiration in the beauty of abandoned Russian dachas. These are wooden houses, where urban Russians spent the sweltering summers. Poetic works of art, with fine carvings and a large variety of shapes and proportions. In former times, the dachas were abandoned during the long Russian winters, making them temporary ice crystals of remembrance. The purity, wealth and serenity of these abandoned places was the inspiration which Winde Rienstra showed the touching vulnerability of human enclosures

Lichting 2013
The prize is awarded every year since 2007 to the most promising graduate collection in the Netherlands. The greatest talents of the seven Dutch fashion academies give a fashion show together to present themselves to the critical fashion press and industry. This year's jury members are fashion editor of The Independent, Alexander Fury, designer and former Lichting winner, Maarten van der Horst, founder of Not Just A Label, Stefan Siegel and Robb Young, fashion consultant and journalist.

A text of Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, in which he compares the behavior of porcupines with human society inspired Anna Kathryn Gregor's collection that reflects on human behavior in private and public spaces. Schopenhauer describes the human need for both affection and protection. The natural armor of the porcupine led to deformed body shapes and the usage of elements of safety clothes.

In Anne van den Boogaard's opinion people live safe and colorless lives. Most people don’t take risks or experience highs or lows. The collection is about the element of surprise, pushing the unexpected and being alive in every way possible. It's about exploring boundaries within the aesthetics of ugliness in an anomalous way.

Wenda Harmsen first highlighted the absurdity of footwear with a heel which seems to disappear into the ground and a toe cap which reaches upward instead forward. It is amazing how she combines oversized silhouettes, checked fabrics and rubber coating.

The collection of Anbasja Blanken had the symbolic and spiritual values of mystical light as a starting point. In some cases, light was attributed supernatural, divine and spiritual powers. Hence the term ‘enlightened’ women that refer to those who enlighten the spiritual routes of others through their veils. These women have the power to lead humanity to a higher state of consciousness and represent the highest state of holiness.

The winner of Lichting 2013, Henriëtte Tilanus, made a tribute to eccentric writer Lady Edith Sitwell from the early twenties. The lady showcases her love of art, but also shows a glimpse of loneliness. Loneliness to be a consequence of her misunderstood beautiful creative mind. She translates this into experimental textile operations, like embroidered plastics, hand painted bleached stripes on denim and ripped out threads. 

Go Dutch

Go Dutch

Unknown   10.15   1 comment  

The 19th edition of Amsterdam Fashion Week will kick-off tonight.

AFW is well known as a platform for young designers, sustainability and innovation. 

I made a top 3 of shows I look most forward to.

SIS by Spijkers & Spijkers

 SS2012

 SS2013

FW2012

Sisters Truus and Riet Spijkers know perfectly how to combine femininity and graphic design.

Marga Weimans

SS2013

FW2013

SS2013

With a mix of fashion and architecture she surprises me everytime. 

Winde Rienstra

 FW2013

 SS2013

FW2012

I am always blown away by her craftmanship, innovativeness and amazing shoes.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness

Unknown   06.53   Comment  

I already told you about Viktor & Rolf's couture comeback and yesterday was the moment of truth.

The show was set in a Japanese garden with painted raked sand and foam rocks. Viktor & Rolf walked out, sat down back-to-back, closed their eyes and proceeded to meditate for five minutes. 'We've been running around for so long, we thought, let's enjoy where we are. Our current state of mind is mindfulness.' Then the models entered the catwalk in rigid voluminous black robes.'We like black because it allows more focus on the shapes.' An all-black collection that played on volume and movement. All twenty models, one for each year of their anniversary, wore the same fabric, a spongy technical silk, and flat rope sandals.

'No beginning and no end. We want it to look as if it’s grown,' Viktor Horsting said. They emphasized that by changing the models into rocks when they made their cirquit.