Everything has its place in the universe and so does the brand new salon by the wonderful Mr. Taco Stuiver, hair dresser of choice for the high end fashion elite and all the cool cultural mavens passing through Amsterdam alike. Check out the gorgeous website by 10-27 art director Mrs. Karen Heuter with copy by yours truly (and find all of us in the mugshot gallery ‘opening’). Photography by none other than JW Kaldenbach.
It has been a pleasure as always to work with the 3rd year fashion students at ArtEZ in Arnhem on defining their collective ‘Collectie Arnhem’ for communication purposes. The press release and show invite below are in Dutch, although words like ZEST, FILTER, GRIP and CRINGE pretty much sum up the mood of a collection that was developed with all the senses in mind. The images below speak a more universal language although they of course fail to offer pleasure for your sense of touch.
Collectie Arnhem 2014 was realised by: Arjen Kesteloot, Colet Eshuis, Diek Pothoven, Eline Janssen, Eline Keuchenius, Eva van Beek, Isabelle Olschewski, Joanne Vosloo, Josephine Dulmers, Josephine Goverts, Katharina Dubbick, Kristan Kuijf, Laura Lepre, Lilian Admiraal, Maartje Janse, Madelène van Ulden, Marieke van der Ven, Max Zara Sterck, Tim Becx, Tung Trinh, Vera van Buren and Yvette Peek.
Photography: JW Kaldenbach
Collectie Arnhem 2014
Z E S T
filter prikkel grip cringe
Ziet, in tijden van visuele overkill, een blinde juist niet méér?
Het uitschakelen van één zintuig versterkt de andere. Deze hypersensitiviteit filtert de essentie uit onze waarneming en prikkelt ons vermogen tot interpretatie.
Het concept voor Collectie Arnhem 2014 werd geboren uit de fascinatie voor een uitspraak van een blind geboren jongen: “it’s beautiful, at least I think so, and I believe what I want to believe.”
In het ontwerpproces zijn puur visuele uitgangspunten – zoals bijvoorbeeld een kleurkaart – uitgeschakeld. In plaats hiervan waren tactiele eigenschappen van materiaal en hun bewerking belangrijk. De persoonlijkheid van de stoffen bepaalt het kleurbeeld.
Door ineenkrimpen ontvouwt een deel van de stof zich in prikkelende volumes die de drang naar aanraken uitlokken. De collectie dwingt de kijker zelf te bepalen wat hij ziet. De structuur van breisels wordt gefrustreerd door puff, volumes worden bedwongen, de kledingstukken verlangen een beleving van drager en toeschouwer.
De collectie heeft lange sluike silhouetten. Volumes worden platgedrukt of komen vanuit het materiaal naar buiten. Contrasten als xxl vs xs, rond vs recht en glans vs mat zijn in de collectie verwerkt. De silhouetten eindigen vaak ter hoogte van de kuit; het lengteverschil in verschillende lagen benadrukt het gelaagde geheel. Door draaiingen en openingen worden de kledingstukken opnieuw gedefinieerd. Scherpe 3D puff, breistructuren en frisse kleuraccenten geven de Zest.
During Dutch Design Week, from october 19 till 27 in Eindhoven, my lovely client – the award winning concept store You Are Here - organized the magnificent fashion talent exhibition ‘Modebelofte 2013 – Future Fashions’ in the historic and yet to be renovated barracks of the military police. The handsome location called Kazerne got a great kick start to it’s new life as a cultural hotspot. It was an honor to collaborate – copy wise – on the ‘Modebelofte 2013 – Future Fashions’ exhibit showcasing the phantasmagorical new tech and hyper crafted works by designers Ana Rajcevic, Duran Lantink, Jef Montes, Matija Cop, Mi-Ah Rödiger, Pauline van Dongen, Sadie Williams, Silvia Romanelli, Stephanie Baechler, Volker Koch, Wim Bruynooghe, Xiao Li, Dewi Bekker, Jantine van Peski, Jenny Postle, Laerke Hooge Andersen, Minju Kim, Winde Rienstra, Anastasia Radevich, Anne Vaandrager, Cat Potter and Rianne Suk. For this year’s Modebelofte, the team from You Are here collaborated with Glamcult Studio, curator Hanka van der Voet and producers Lenn Cox and Gerard Koot. Photography courtesy of Dirk van den Heuvel.
Matija Cop
exhibition text by Mo Veld
Wim Bruynooghe (left), Pauline van Dongen (shoes and dress) and Yoram Tomasoha
Nadine Goepfert and Xiao Li
Alfhild Sarah Gulper
Jantine van Peski
Minju Kim (left), Dewi Bekker and Raffaela Grasspointer
Volker Koch (leather accessories left) and Stephanie Baechler
left to right: David Laport, Heleen Blanken (movie), Miriam de Waard and Jaimee Mckenna
Held on Friday June 14th at Paradiso Amsterdam, the Gerrit Rietveld Academy Fashion Show 2013 was once again an excellent exercise in progressive style, under the direction of the head of the fashion department Niels Klavers. The set was designed by Rietveld students Merel Bernhardt and Stefan Voets and the beautiful visual campaign was done by graduate students Edwin Bonnaffé and Gabrielle Pauty. PROUD to be a teacher at a place breeding such talents! Here are some pretty photographs of the event, including some amazing designs by 1st and 2nd year fashion students shot by Omri Bigetz.
The new semester has already kicked off with a fresh new batch of ambitious fashion students, and I still have to salute the graduate class of 2013! Shame on me. It was a pleasure to have these talents in my class: Niki Milioni, Tumay Faydaci, Alla Kuzmik, Charlotte Beeck, Duran Lantink end Verena Michels. This here is only a selection of photo’s from their graduation show at Amsterdam pop temple Paradiso, by the amazing Team Peter Stigter.
My personal favorite: Verena Michels
'AFARBEITUNG' by Verena Michels
Power to women in crisis
New decadence by Duran Lantink
The 'Lick my clit - I'll suck your dick' dressNew decadence by Duran Lantink
3D printed devinity shoes by Duran Lantink
Trucker-tastic by Charlotte Beeck
On the Road with Charlotte Beeck
Alla Kuzmyk's brave new Ukrainians
Ukrainian folklore by Alla Kuzmyk
Its my party... by Tumay Faydaci
Monistic Group Dynamics in fashion by Tumay Faydaci
Detail and jewelry by Niki Milioni
Grow with me outfit by Niki Milioni
Toilet seats. High-end Pressalit toilet seats, illuminated by the celebrated Dutch design duo Scholten & Baijings that is, but Carmen Freudenthal and Elle Verhagen had never before projected their inimitable creative views on such a thing as sanitary ware. The result however, a 2,5 minute stop-motion film and four theme images to campaign the Pressalit by Scholten & Baijings collaboration called ‘Colour Blend’, figures gracefully in their portfolio.
Freudenthal/Verhagen’s unorthodox mixed media approach of creating fashion related imagery has earned them an international reputation among art buyers, curators and editors alike. From the very beginning when they started working together – on fashion productions for new generation titles such as i-D magazine, on lookbooks and catwalk presentations for fashion designer Bernhard Willhelm and on commercial images for Dutch advertising agency Kessels Kramer – the Amsterdam based duo have incorporated different art disciplines into their photography. Collage techniques, theatre settings, performance art, video art or even land art, you will find references to a wide scope of artistic influences next to that of fashion.
The ‘Colour Blend’ video for Pressalit takes you on a journey to the most inner and private spaces in four differently themed homes and lives, to a place where a perfectly matching toilet seat becomes the most natural visual element, and then beyond and on to the next. Like a never-ending peep show box the viewer’s eye is pulled in a straight central focus line and at a controlled constant speed through this magic 3D collage, which integrates Scholten & Baijings’ concept of merging colours using a fine regular dot pattern.
Freudenthal/Verhagen started incorporating video into their vocabulary in 2004 with a film installation called The Plate Spinner for Bernhard Wilhelm. This seven-minute film was part of a show in Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam. An installation commissioned by fashion initiative Painted Series for Museum Paviljoens in Almere in 2008 showed the more complex use of film that has become their signature. Their Singing Girls installation (2010), which projects video onto photography, is currently on show at the MOTI in Breda, as part of the Couture Grafique show. Recent fashion and portrait photography productions include assignments by Dutch newspaper glossy NRC Lux, department store Bijenkorf and their specially commissioned contributions to the Blue Jeans exhibition in Centraal Museum Utrecht in the fall of 2012. The latter assignment earned them the ‘public’s favourite’ vote.
What better occasion to catch up with old friends than to pen down their ‘Bricks and mortar, blood and tears’ tale of how they ended up in their present lovely home and working together as successfully as they do. Photography couple Maurice Scheltens and Liesbeth Abbenes are living proof of the golden formula of not only staying true to your own obsession, but also to mine it laboriously to dazzling depths, where no one can follow. Hope you enjoy the read, right here in the PDF Apartamento11 – Maurice and Liesbeth, or in the lovely paper issue #11, out now!
Apartamento #11
TimeCapsules is a great Warhol-esque gift item conceived by youth marketing expert Anouk van der El, designer Mae Engelgeer, creative collective Venour and the award winning product designers at Officeoriginair. It was a great pleasure to join in for some copy for the launch of this thought provoking product. As I am the proud owner of one of the very first TimeCapsules, I can contest it does put your life in a fresh perspective as it throws quite a challenge in your lap. What would you seal up in this pretty white pod for future reference, for what occasion, and for whom? Mine is still sitting here.. waiting for a plan. Chance is my son will open it some quarter century from now….
TimeCapsules
Today it is my recommendation to get into the good habit of checking The Daily Recommendation on the Fantastic Man website, ehm, daily. Occasionally I have the pleasure of bringing in small delights, like this time when I was invited to the press opening of David Hockney’s show A Bigger Picture at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. I was absolutely thrilled to meet the master himself but the show in it itself is absolutely jaw dropping too. Treat yourself to this trip!
As I model for friends only I was particularly happy to pose for Mark van Vorstenbos and Twan Janssen, the ever so charming couple behind Dutch knitwear label YOUASME MEASYOU, in front of the lens of my good friends at Studio Blommers/Schumm. The portrait is part of an exhibition in Amsterdam’s famed Gallery Torch called YOUASME MEASYOU The Social Show, subtitled The Art of Sharing. All the people in the mirrored portraits belong to the Family of Founders of this utterly contemporary label with its precious quality knitwear and jersey pieces and innovative concepts such as the world wide virtual stores. Do learn more about this really forward thinking new luxury brand concept on their website or come to Gallery Torch to sign up for this wonderful win-win fashion deal: join the Family of Founders! Make sure not to miss Riette Wanders‘ flower arrangements while doing the paper work. YOUASME MEASYOU The Social Show runs until December 22nd, 2012. (The hand knit scarf I’m wearing in the picture will make a comeback in the collection soon and, whisper whisper, they do awesome sales too!)
