MRS. MO VELD

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

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 22^nd, 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!)

On Friday September 28 I was invited to the opening dinner in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, in honor of the opening of Rejina Pyo’s breathtaking exhibition. The Han Nefkens Fasion Award jury panel, including Viktor & Rolf, Gentlewoman’s Penny Martin, fashion lecturer José Teunissen and mecenas Han Nefkens himself, selected the young Korean born Central Saint Martins Fashion Master graduate as the lucky talent to be granted 25.000 Euro’s to realize a new collection and putting it up in a show at the wonderful Boijmans van Beuningen art temple in Rotterdam. Rejina Pyo’s work is overwhelming in it’s sculptural perfection and pressing fashion vision. Niels Klavers and I returned to Rotterdam shortly after for a field trip with the Gerrit Rietveld fashion department, and we strongly recommend you see this immaculate little show too. No need to buy tickets, it’s put up in a free zone near the entrance, until January 20, 2013.

It is with pride that I make myself useful as a copywriter for the great cause of the Amsterdam based Orange Babies foundation, whose hands on initiatives help to fight HIV in Africa. The most recent occasion was the Orange Babies Gala 2012, a high profile fundraising auction event which took place on June 23rd. As part of this year’s Chic ‘n Soul themed gala the famous Dutch wax print company Vlisco, with it’s vast African connection, collaborated with some 30 young and established designers to create exclusive accessories for auction. My Eindhoven-connection, fashion and design concept store You Are Here, helped recruit an army of wonderful young design talents to collaborate in this colorful exercise. Besides the many many colorful and perfectly covetable bags, ties and bow ties here are a few gorgeous examples by Thera Hillenaar, Turina Jewellery, design studio RenS and MATTIJS. The night’s auction made a neat total of 527.805 Euro’s for the Orange Babies cause by the way.

Thera Hillenaar X Vlisco

Sandra Turina X Vlisco

Renee Mennen and Stefanie van Keijsteren of Studio RenS X Vlisco

MATTIJS X Vlisco