DESIGNERS, HOW DO THEY DO IT?
INSPIRATION DESIGN
Novelty and innovation play an important role for me in developing new design. Although I am interested in traditional art and design, pioneering, innovative designers and pioneers of the field stimulate me mainly because they make something that was previously considered impossible possible. The ambition to come up with such designs is something that drives me in my own work. The designers below offer me a great source of inspiration.
IRIS VAN HERPEN
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Iris van Herpen is a homegrown fashion designer. Her Haute Couture (fashion) designs combine old crafts and new techniques, with her focus on special materials. In 2006 she graduated from ArtEZ, Academy for the Visual Arts, in Arnhem. During her studies she did an internship with well-known designers, including Alexander McQueen and Claudy Jongstra. She then started her own fashion label in 2007. She herself describes her work as fashion, where normal rules do not apply. She distinguishes herself from others with her innovative concepts and is a pioneer in her field in terms of material and construction. She was the first fashion designer to use the 3D printing technique in her designs. The dress she made with this was named one of the 50 best inventions of the year by TIME Magazine in 2011. During her research into new concepts, she regularly engages in interdisciplinary collaborations with people from different professions, including architects, graphic designers, film makers and singers.
What really appeals to me about her work is that she doesn't think in boxes, but in a spectrum where everything can connect with each other. Clothing doesn't have to be fabric and the feminine shape isn't limited to the traditional silhouettes we know. She reimagines femininity and the movements our bodies can make by continuing to rediscover the interaction between the two.
ZAHA HADID
The Baghdad-born Iraqi-British Architect studied both mathematics and architecture. After her studies she worked for OMA, Office for Metropolitan Architecture of Rem Koolhaas and in 2004 she was the first female architect to receive the Pritzker Prize, which is also seen as the Nobel Prize for architecture. The interplay of lines is a large part of her oeuvre and arouses a resemblance to Iris van Herpen, who also incorporates this in her designs. What particularly appeals to me is that she (now her desk ) operates across many different sectors and at all scales. My favorite Hadid design is the Bee'ah Headquarters. Her premise in her work is that her designs are in sync with the environment and I think she outdoes herself in this desert-like building. The connection between shape, colour, material and its environment is phenomenal in my opinion.
In this, however, Iris and Zaha differ. While Zaha's work fits in as well as possible with the environment, Iris goes against this with her work as an extension of what the female body can do.
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DAAN ROOSEGARDE
I used to make regular trips to Amsterdam. As a Frisian I often drove up and down the Afsluitdijk. In 2015, Daan Roosegaarde was asked to create a design for the locks on behalf of the government. This was my first acquaintance with his work, my curiosity about his use of materials grew and with it my admiration for him as an artist and designer. In 2018 I then had the opportunity to admire his 'Waterlicht' in my hometown of Leeuwarden.
Roosegaarde studied at the Academy of Art and Industry, the IKA in Enschede. The way in which he plays and shapes with light is extremely unique and makes his work fluid. His strength lies in the elusive. He makes us think and plays on the senses of man by feeling and seeing. In my view, his most special work is the Van Gogh-Roosegaarde cycle path, in which he inextricably links old and new.
