MRS. MO VELD

The Amsterdam photography museum FOAM is opening a dependence-cum-concept store named &Foam on January 26, 2012. As I am proud to mention that I will start teaching Fashion Theory at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy this February, I particularly look forward to see EVERYONE at the opening of the alumni exhibit there! It is organized by the brand new head of the Gerrit Rietveld fashion department Niels Klavers – formerly of Klavers van Engelen – and it will feature work by JOFF, Freudenthal/Verhagen, And Beyond, Emmeline de Mooij, Paul Helbers, Corné Gabriëls, Thera Hillenaar, Hyun Yeu, Wojciech Dziedzic and more. Let’s raise those glasses to another great season for genuine fashion talent!

Invite_&Foam

Going to print this very day… and I can’t wait to see it: BUGABOO magazine by …,staat creative agency. I got to do the loveliest fashion-mood-lifting interview with Angela Missoni for the occasion of Missoni’s fabulous collaboration with Bugaboo, and I did a fun profile on Mark Jacobs for the same reason. I’ll add the copy as soon as the magazine is out and the embargo is lifted!

Photography: Barrie Hullegie & Sabrina Bongiovanni, Styling: Maarten Spruyt

Long overdue since the lovely Sammy at C.Cruden mailed me this pic, but here it is, at last, in a category I do not even have on my site but I might just start it right here. Check out this classless rip off act by a Dutch brand called Ruby Tuesday of this other Dutch brand C.Cruden’s wonderful ‘Leather Lace’. The folks at Ruby Tuesday even ripped off the packaging as you can clearly make out for yourself. As Ruby Tuesday, a tiny venture in ‘iconic fashion pieces that complement your wardrobe’ state on their site: “We love being inspired by the “little things” in life. Be it the simplicity of Scandinavian furniture design to  Farrow’s hairdo in Rosemary’s Baby.” Or C.Cruden’s marvelous multi functional Leather Lace in this case… tired, very tired indeed.

Watch out for the September 2011 issue of Elle Decor Italia with a special story on Amsterdam I made with photographer Kasia Gatkowska. Our focus was on ‘something old, something new’ with lots of exciting, innovative, artisanal or downright bold gems of places and people. Download the full PDF here

I am always happy to be part of the increasingly important magazine BLEND. In the (current) Spring Summer 2011 issue I wrote the introduction to a 50 page fashion shoot by photographer Tomas Nässtrom, fashion director JOFF and art director Laurenz Brunner: an ode to Raf Simon’s utterly modern minimalism at Jil Sander. An exceptional and quite literally amazing fashion editorial indeed – to which I made the sort of decisive ‘secret service creative intelligence’ contribution that never gets credited. Faith aside, I feel no less pride.

Enjoy the short essay after the pagebreak.

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Following the same minimalist approach of their summer 2011 collection, Niels Klavers and Astrid van Engelen set out to maximize effects for winter. The overall look is that of a beautiful piece of fabric thrown on the body by a gentle breeze. Adding knitwear to the Klavers van Engelen line for the first time, in downy and weightless mohair, as well as a deep dyed curly goat fur, they further explored their signature purist design principles.

Minimal interventions causing maximum effect. Two different rectangular pieces of fabric sandwich the body to make a top or dress, a mohair knit in front and a washed silk for the much shorter back. Complexity and ease merge in dresses and trousers with large integrated square shaped shawls that can be worn loose over the shoulder or tied around the neck creating a sophisticated draped top. Loose shapes such as caftan tops and dresses or a kimono like trenchcoat mirror the great fashion decade of bohemian ease and femininity, yet executed with razor sharp minimalist constructions. Read the rest of this entry »

Always nice to see your own work pop up unexpectedly like this old I LOVE YOUR WORK poster I created with the design team at Mannschaft and artist Jan Rothuizen for management institute ‘de Baak’. It just popped up in the decor of this new TV series about our beloved city Amsterdam called A’dam – E.V.A. (Amsterdam and all the others). Nice to see people care to leave it up on the wall for so long!

Commisioned by Premsela, Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion, I got to interview Filip Arickx of A.F. Vandevorst and New York based photographer/visual artist Zach Gold on his film String Theory – featuring A.F.’s SS2010 collection – which will be shown at the IFFR11 as part of The Perfect Cut; reflections on Fashion and Film. The article will be published in the film festival’s paper Daily Tiger and Zach will speak about his work on Saturday, January 29 in Cinerama. Good stuff, fashion cinema; relatively new and in full artistic bloom it obviously has an amazing potential now all sorst of pods and pads accompany us everywhere we go.

A great new womens label I’ve had the pleasure to consult and write for, Sophie 1234567+, is now showing at Droog Design as part of the Winter Salon route in Amsterdam. Discover Sophie, a tirelessly designed high quality wardrobe solution for women on their site, or explore Amsterdam’s amazing alternative fashion week route Winter Salon (15-30 January ’11) and you’ll find a pretty Sophie installation at Droog.

Sophie's teaser website

This week two major projects I worked on over the summer will see the light. First on wednesday the 3rd of November there’s the official launch of ROOD magazine , a one time publication to go with the ROOD exhibition in the Royal Tropical Institute’s Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. It was a huge job and a great pleasure to put this magazine together as the editor-in-chief (all the way to final editing of course), working closely with the Tropenmuseum’s curators, the amazing art directors and designers at Studio Roosje Klap and all those great contributors. The ROOD exhibition, a huge exposé about the colour RED throughout cultures and times, designed by Maarten Spruyt and Tsur Reshef will open this Thursday the 4th. Needless to say, you MUST go and see it.

Secondly, on Thursday the 4rth of November, before ROOD opens with a gala, I will join the official launch gathering for voordekunst.nl, an online crowdfunding platform for the Dutch arts, initiated by Amsterdams Fonds Voor De Kunst. I did the necessary copywriting for the site and its first campaign, working together smoothly as ever with my good designer-friends at Mannschaft.

Shows do go on like they say so there will be no putting up of painful party feet come Friday. Au contraire. I will be on the first train to The Hague where I will be in chambers with the jury for the Dutch Fashion Awards 2010. Friday night November 5th the Dutch Fashion Foundation and their international power-jury will herald a new Dutch Fashion talent with the big prize by Mercedes-Benz and there are three more awards to be handed out, so untill we can raise the cocktail glasses, we’ll be guessing: after Klavers Van Engelen in 2007, Monique van Heist in 2008, Sjaak Hullekes in 2009… who is the fairest of them all in 2010? Ok, me and a handful of other backstage ants will know a couple of hours earlier but our phones will be off!

And the big winner was Iris van Herpen, taking home 3 Ted Noten designed awards