My name is Matthew Akabosski and I'm the senior curator of fashion and material culture at the Brooklyn Museum, and I'm joined on stage by ASL interpreters Allison Merkel and Leah Colm Rothman. Thank you, Allison and Leah, for expanding our conversation tonight.
It is an absolute joy to welcome you to our Brooklyn Talks celebrating the opening of our special exhibition, Iris Van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses, which honors one of the most forward-thinking fashion designers of her generation. A pioneer in the use of technologies, Van Herpen transcends conventional clothing norms. She embraces couture artisanship while dovetailing innovative techniques into her practice.
The exhibition features more than 140 extraordinary haute couture creations alongside contemporary artworks. Iris Van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses is sponsored by American Express. We'd like to extend additional thanks to the Simons Foundation for supporting tonight's talk.
This evening, Iris Van Herpen offers a rare glimpse into her wide-ranging career, delving deep into her creative process and the inspiration behind the fashion in this exhibition. She is joined on stage by Vanessa Friedman, fashion director and chief fashion critic of The New York Times.
When you entered the theater tonight, you received cards to gather your questions during the talk. Toward the end of the conversation, my colleagues Margot and Lauren will appear in the aisles collecting the cards for question and answer. Please look out for them.
After the conversation, we hope you'll stick around and explore the exhibition. Ticket holders to the talk have exclusive after-hours access and are some of the first to experience the exhibition.
I'm honored to introduce our speakers tonight. Widely heralded as one of fashion's most forward-thinking designers, Iris Van Herpen discovered fashion for the first time in her grandmother's attic, where she unearthed a mini museum of garments and costumes that opened her eyes to another decade.
Trained in classical ballet, throughout her career the designer has been fascinated by fluidity and inyang and the entangled art of movement. Van Herpen's vision is guided by the human anatomy and the way the body moves, making her otherworldly-looking designs adored by collectors and clients worldwide.
Whether drawing from the intricate web of nature, the structural philosophy of living architecture, or the fluidity of the anatomy of the body, Iris Van Herpen reimagines the body as a site of perpetual transformation.
Vanessa Friedman, who you might remember from her powerful conversation with Keanu Reeves during the David Bowie retrospective, was named the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The New York Times in March 2014.
In this role, she leads global fashion coverage for both The New York Times and International New York Times on all platforms. Before joining the paper, Ms. Friedman was the inaugural fashion editor of the Financial Times, the fashion features director for InStyle UK, and was the European editor of American Elle. She is the author of 'The Louvre in Fashion'. She is the recipient of the 2012 Front Page Award for Fashion Writing and the 2018 Media Award from The Fashion Group International.
I would also like to mention that they've both been featured in recent films starring Anne Hathaway: Iris for her dress design in Mother Mary, if you have a chance to see that great film, and Vanessa as herself in The Devil Wears Prada, in a scene filmed in the Brooklyn Museum's Beaux-Arts Court.
Before welcoming Iris and Vanessa to the stage, I'm thrilled to pass the microphone to John Tracy, program director of the Simons Foundation, who will share more about the organization's essential work. Thank you very much.
Hey everyone, I actually just saw The Devil Wears Prada. Vanessa totally stole the show, I have to say. It's hard to upstage Meryl Streep. I'm John Tracy, program director for Science, Society, and Culture, as Matthew said. And on behalf of the foundation, I just want to extend a hearty thank you to the Brooklyn Museum for having us tonight.
My team's here. They've somehow finagled themselves into the second row down there. What's up, guys? We're so pleased to be supporting this event and the brilliant Sculpting the Senses exhibition. It's not every day that you get to speak before two genuine cultural icons, Vanessa Friedman and of course Iris Van Herpen. And I know we're all eager to hear from them, so I'll be brief.
The Simons Foundation exists to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences and to engage the public with the wonderful, messy, inspiring process of science. We firmly believe that math and science are part of culture and that one of the most powerful ways to engage people is to illuminate the ways in which math and science manifest in art, music, design, fashion, of course, and much more.
This core belief led us to launch Infinite Sums, a national initiative to celebrate mathematics, something that underpins all of science and is a fundamental element of the most beautiful things in our universe. It's an effort to kind of go beyond its practical applications and shift the focus to its beauty and its ubiquity.
When we were in the early stages of exploring how to do this, fashion was actually, believe it or not, one of the first things that came to mind. Because beyond the surface-level or practical connections between math and fashion, like pattern cutting or measurements, there actually exists a very rich history and a beautiful relationship between designers and mathematicians going back centuries, from 16th-century mathematicians who also worked as tailors to Issey Miyake and his manipulation of two-dimensional fabrics into three-dimensional pieces.
And of course, there is the truly singular Iris Van Herpen, someone whose work has forever existed at the intersection of art and science, technology, and of course, math. There are countless examples here. For one, her incredible Sensory Seas collection, that draws brilliant parallels between the human body and the ecology of our oceans, features the fractal flows dress, the morphogenesis dress, which is a concept studied by the great mathematician Alan Turing.
A personal favorite of mine is the nautiloid dress, which of course evokes the logarithmic geometry of the nautilus shell, which is of course an indelible symbol of the math inherent in nature. Shout out to Matthew for that beautiful nautilus sculpture that I saw at the exhibition just before.
The influence of math and science on Iris's brilliant work and on fashion more broadly is not difficult to find, and actually that influence is also not one-directional. You know, there have been many instances of designers giving life to otherwise esoteric or theoretical concepts in math and science. One of my favorite examples of this comes from Savas Dimopoulos. He's a physicist who I believe Iris met when she was a guest artist at CERN.
Dimopoulos was wrestling with this question of what happened before the Big Bang. And he noticed that when visitors would come to CERN and they would ask him, you know, what did that time look like? And he didn't know what to tell them. He was having trouble visualizing what he called the frothy magma of quantum foam, which is thought to have seeded the Big Bang. In fact, he said that even mathematics had failed to describe it.
A few years later, he learned that Iris had designed a dress that was at least partially inspired by a conversation that they had. And when he saw it, he described feeling a ping of joy. Iris's visual metaphor for quantum foam was instantly recognizable to him and it immediately sort of deeply resonated. So, a conversation about physics and math inspires the creation of a dress. And that dress helps tell the story of a time before the Big Bang in ways not even mathematics could. A beautiful relationship indeed and a testament to the brilliance of Iris Van Herpen.
Again, we're honored to support the Brooklyn Museum's presentation of Sculpting the Senses and to celebrate Iris tonight. And with that, please join me in welcoming Vanessa Friedman and Iris Van Herpen to the stage.
Hi, thank you, John, and thank you, Matthew. I am so happy to be here talking with this woman whose work has sometimes bamboozled me, sometimes amazed me, but endlessly intrigued me. She's really someone who understands that technology is just the great-great-great-grandchild of the sewing needle and is not the enemy of couture, but rather its tool.
I mean, speaking as someone who has long believed that the laws of the physical world also govern the fashion world, right? Like hemlines that go up must come down. For every action or trend, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It is impossible not to fangirl over someone who finds her inspiration not in the Moroccan desert or the Riviera, but the Large Hadron Collider, right? Like, it's amazing.
So, in fact, I actually often think that using the word designer in the context of your career and your work is kind of silly. And so, my first question to you, Iris, is actually: how do you think of yourself?
I think I don't really — my mind doesn't think in disciplines so much. Like to me, the disciplines behave quite fluidly. I find it hard to separate art from fashion and from the other disciplines that I work with. So often people ask me whether I'm a fashion designer or an artist. And I think I'm both, and we don't have to choose. And I think fashion can really be a form of art. And I'm trying to find that freedom in my work. Yeah.
Did you ever think about being a kind of more traditional definition, you know, what people would call a more traditional definition of an artist?
What would be a more traditional...
The body is really my canvas. I keep on going back to the body always. That's so intuitive to me. And I have a dance background. I used to do classical ballet. So the body is just my, yeah, my starting point always. And I'm looking for that transformative energy that I've explored in dance. But I'm trying to do that in materials now.
And I cannot imagine not working for the body, but at the same time I always like to venture into other realms as well. So I've done some things in architecture, and I've also been doing some sculpture work, which is also part of the exhibition. But the body will always be my canvas and my starting point.
Why? What is it about the body?
It's so personal. I think my work is really personal, and that's what I love about couture. It's art that you actually embody. So instead of looking at a painting on a wall, you go inside that work, and it responds to your own emotions and to your own body movements. And that is something that keeps on fascinating me. Yeah.
It's interesting to me because I feel like it is actually the body itself that has often kind of made fashion considered a decorative art rather than an actual art, right? The fact that it's supposed to be worn, that it's supposed to be used, and somehow not as like pure.
Yeah. And I actually think I like to challenge that idea because even if you look at the history of fashion, it could have like sometimes it had very almost like a transcendental function, like a communication tool between us and the higher spirit, for example. And I think fashion has so many faces and so many sides. I think we should not forget to look at the deeper meaning within fashion because indeed on one hand it's a product that we use in everyday life, but it's also a form of art, or it can be a form of art that speaks to a much deeper level within ourselves.
And when I work on looks for clients, I really like to refer to those creations as portraits, because I'm trying to express their universe into my materials. And yeah, I really think it's the same as a painter making a portrait for someone, but then you go inside of it, and that makes it so personal and so unpredictable, and that's why I keep on going back there.
So when you're making something for someone, do you have long conversations with them about what they want or who they are? How does that process work?
Yeah, I like the long conversations to get to know someone. But it of course depends on the person, but the more I know about someone, yeah, the more personal it can get.
What kind of questions do you ask?
Well, usually the people that I work with are art collectors as well. They have interest beyond fashion into other forms of art. And I like to understand the other artists that they are interested in, or even how they understand the world, like what their perception on even religion or science is, just to understand their form of reality, because yeah, that triggers me to translate it into my materials.
So you don't feel in any way limited by the fact that you know you have to make, say, a garment with armholes or, you know, the ability to sit down?
No, because I can take my freedom. I mean, I think there is sort of a balance — most of the looks that I'm making are wearable, easy to wear. But there are also works that I'm creating that are really assured to explore the edges of the techniques or the materials.
And a good example is the 3D printing. When I started working on that, the first ones were still rigid because the 3D printers were really created for architecture and the softness was not needed. But by starting to work with the technology, the companies were also triggered or pushed to innovate their materials and the printers. So sometimes you have to start working on a technique and have the patience to develop it.
So now the 3D prints that we are making are flexible and soft and wearable, and if I would have not done the more experimental pieces, the pieces that we can do today would not exist. So I really believe in that patience of putting a lot of time into the R&D, because that ultimately brings fashion forward.
So give me a kind of timeline for these techniques. How long would you work on something before it becomes, you know, either commercially viable or even seen?
Yeah, it's a long time, much longer than people realize, because when I was working on the 3D printing in 2009, the technique was not well known, but actually behind the scenes it was already in development for about 10 years. So it takes a long time before something hits industries.
And yeah, then for me it took another, I think, four years to really get the technology where I wanted it to be, and it's still ongoing. Still new materials are coming out. And I spoke today about the 4D printing, which started about three years ago, and I'm very intrigued by the possibilities of it. But I know that it will probably take another four or five years at least before it's refined enough for me to bring it into that very fragile space of the body.
Can you explain a little bit about 4D printing?
Yeah. It's a technique in which you can program a memory into a material. So a material can change shape over time, for example. And I think it really fits my way of working because somehow I am most drawn to my works when they are in the process of the creation, because they keep on evolving and changing, and when it's finished, then it's almost like as if something is gone as well. And I think the 4D printing could be that bridge where the look will still evolve over time with you. Yeah.
When you say the memory is embedded into the material, what does that actually mean?
It means that you, for example, can program a sequence of shapes into the material, and that means because I'm always working on a silhouette, and when the garment is finished, that silhouette will not change anymore. So with this technique I can design basically over time, like music is doing as well. So I can think of the silhouette as a start, and I can think of other silhouettes where it will go into later. Yeah.
Okay. So how do you find these different kind of techniques and scientists that you're working with? How does, you know, coming from a dance and then fashion background, how do you then, you know, move into this world that is really very foreign to most people in those worlds?
Yeah, I like to do a lot of research. Some of it is through websites, some of it is through books, through exhibitions. But also through my network of creatives around me. There is, yeah, artists and scientists that will also, or even journalists sometimes, that will write me with something they have discovered, and they had to think of me, and the other way around, when I discover something that I'm intrigued by, I'll send it to others that I think could do something with it. So it's like a creative ecosystem that is also part of that R&D. Yeah.
And what is their reaction when you call them and say, 'Hi, I'd like to make a dress out of your research?'
It's getting much easier throughout time. I remember in the early years people would be a lot more surprised because the collaboration between fashion and other disciplines was not happening at all. And I think now when I approach a university or a scientist, they either know the work or they research it and they understand the possibilities more quickly. Yeah.
But the timeline is always the biggest gap, because fashion is still moving very fast, and I'm trying to slow it down because I'm doing one show a year, but still in the realms of science that's super fast. So I'm always trying to inspire them to think in shorter timelines, and yeah, that can be a challenge. Yeah.
Why are you still even doing one show a year? You know, why participate in what is, you know, essentially the commercial cycle of the fashion world?
Yeah, I think I need it. I definitely need a deadline because I am always changing things. Even the exhibition is a good example. I am evolving the exhibition constantly because I'm changing, and if I don't have a deadline, I would just create looks that keep on evolving and changing. So I definitely need that deadline, and I think the one-year show is a good amount of time to go really deep into the new techniques, to have the possibilities of really far-out collaborations that need time, and to also enjoy the process. Yeah.
And so let's go back now to the sort of beginning of this combination of science and fashion and art. You know, when did that start for you, and why did that start for you?
Yeah, it slowly evolved. I'm not tech-savvy, or I'm not a scientist, as some people think. Not at all. I did the art academy for fashion, and throughout my studies I was really focused on learning about the traditional sides of craftsmanship and couture because there's so much to learn there. And even the first two to three years that I was having my own brand, I was really focused on the more traditional techniques.
And then it was actually through architects that I got to know that were using the 3D printing that I got curious, like, oh, that's such a different way of working. And I actually got stuck at that point because I had this water dress in my mind that I could not make with fabrics or traditional techniques. So it was a perfect timing where I felt stuck in an idea that I had and meeting the architects that had a completely different technique possibility.
So I started collaborating with them, and then, yeah, that opened up a lot of new doors later. So from that collaboration I started to collaborate with other people, and it slowly evolved into sort of a multiverse of different disciplines.
What other breakthrough moments like that have you had? You know, like after 3D printing, what was kind of your next big technological leap?
I think it was actually biology. I would say I think another interesting collaboration that happened was with Philip Beesley and also Neri Oxman. With Neri Oxman we really went into the biology with MIT, and with Philip Beesley, yeah, I sometimes call him my material mentor because he works with so many different disciplines at once you cannot even define it as a discipline. So yeah, that opened up again a lot of new different ways of thinking for me. Yeah.
So talking about biology, which systems do you feel sort of most attached to in your work?
It depends throughout time, like it changes. I think an important collection to me was the Woods of Rebirth, where a biologist called Merlin Sheldrake inspired me to explore the fungi world and the underground networks, and it's really nature's communication system, and we know so little about it, and we're exploring a lot — well, biologists currently are exploring a lot in that realm, and to me it just opened up a whole new world.
And also in terms of growing fabrics, I think a lot is going to be possible. We're already, of course, growing the mushroom leathers, but also using the woods of plants to grow textures and textiles, or even the spy material that I've been working with, using the fermentation process into fashion. I really feel there is a lot possible within the combination of technology and biology. Yeah.
So when you were first thinking about this exhibit and putting it together, how much did you think about, you know, what you want people to learn from it? Because your techniques and your materials are so different from what most people think about, certainly I think people in the industry think about when they think about fashion.
Yeah. It was really important for me already from the beginning of working on the exhibition to make the exhibition not a fashion exhibition. It's a fashion exhibition, but it's much more. And because there are so many different disciplines coming together, maybe there's not even a word for this type of exhibition. And I really wanted to express my universe and my way of thinking. And I hope that when people have explored the exhibition, that their perception of fashion has widened and that they see the interconnectedness with all the layers of life around this. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I feel personally having seen it now — this is the second iteration I've seen, but this is the fifth iteration, right, that it's been through. It is like it is an incredibly generous experience because it is a little bit like being inside your head, you know, which I think is not a place that's often accessible to people just looking at clothes.
How, like as it's changed over time, what have you learned through the process of remaking it?
Yeah, I have been adding elements. One of the elements is the touch samples. I actually wanted that from the beginning, but that first museum in Paris had some constraints. So I'm really pleased that we are able to do it here, because when you touch the tactility of the materials, you understand the works that you're looking at so much better. So I even hope to keep on expanding that.
And the atelier has become an even more personal space in Brooklyn for multiple reasons. I've been creating a site-specific installation, and that really shows the handwork in the atelier in real time. And I think one of the beautiful parts of couture is its slowness. I think there is a big value to find in slowing down the way we look at art, but also the way we make it. And that installation really brings you into the atelier quite deeply.
So I hope people find that meditative space that I feel and experience in my atelier, because what I hear a lot when people come to my atelier is they have this perception of fashion that people are running around and are in a stressful situation. But that is usually not the case. It's actually a beautiful space of meditation, and so I want also to change that perception and to give people that experience. Yeah.
I mean, I think that the touch aspect is also interesting because it is true that often when people see your work, you know, the first thing they say is like, wow, that's not wearable, or, you know, how do you move in that, or how do you do this, because it will look hard or spiky or very constructed.
And in fact you often told me it was actually soft and wearable, and I was like, yeah, mhm, right, but actually it is.
I like to play with that perception. I find a lot of inspiration in alchemy, and that's like transforming one material into another, and we are really doing that a lot in the textures and materials that we work with, because a lot of the materials that we use are actually developed inside the atelier or developed with partners around the globe, and therefore I can really control the type of movements, and I even like to manipulate the way a material moves or drapes.
So even materials that indeed people don't have a perception of how it will behave or move, I always like to warp that perception. So often things feel very differently than they look.
Let's think of one. In Forces Behind the Forms there is a 3D-printed look done with TU Delft, like the university in Delft in the Netherlands, and it was the first time that we were able to put an illusion tulle inside the 3D printer. So that garment looks 3D-printed, and people have their perception with those materials, but it's actually as soft as an embroidered look that we would do.
Because the base layer is the illusion tulle that I use a lot, and that behaves like a second skin. You don't really feel it, you don't really see it, but it's there. And it's like a base layer of construction. And that was a big moment for me to bring the more traditional techniques together with the newer techniques, because in the early times often one garment would be constructed from one technique.
And if you look at my work now, and you will explore that in the exhibition for sure, you will see even three or four different techniques merged into one look, and yeah, that's giving me a lot of creative freedom.
Yeah. What's some of the hardest things you've ever had to make or tried to make?
One of the hardest processes, or the most challenging processes, was the living look that was done for Sympoiesis, for my latest show in Paris, and it's alive, and it's created with 125 million bioluminescent algae, and the algae respond to the movement of the body, and it's done with a bio-designer called Chris Bellamy and also the University of Amsterdam.
And it's even hard to describe that process. Throughout the process, we've had many moments where we thought this is not going to work, because it's such a sensitive and delicate process that no one had any experience with before. But it worked out in the end, and I think it's really, really special that it is in the exhibition.
It's here? It's in the exhibition? Yeah. Which section is it in?
It's in the first section. Yeah.
And how do you maintain it?
It has a rhythm, a day and a night rhythm. So the light is their source of energy. So the light — it's sort of inside a glass cabinet, and the light is controlled so it can sleep for eight hours, just like we do. And there's also moisture inside the cabinet because that's their natural environment. That's about it. Yeah.
Well, the individual lifespan of an algae is very short. It's a few days. But you can look at it more as an organism as a whole, like a beehive would be. So potentially it can live for a long time because they reproduce, but if the reproduction would stop, then it's going to live very short. So yeah, no one really knows. Yeah.
I haven't tried it on, but it has been worn by a model on the runway, and then we didn't want to whisk it too much, so it was preserved to go into the exhibition.
So what happens to a garment like that if you make it? I mean, obviously it doesn't go onto a shop floor. Is it — does it go to a collector?
Well, I'm thinking about it because we don't — like it's such a new adventure. There are, for example, clients that are interested in that look, but do we then instruct the client with all the caregiving that it needs? It's something we still have to figure out. Yeah. Like it's not entirely thought through, the whole process.
No, you take your algae to work day.
So, in the process of putting the exhibition together and then iterating it over time, did it make you think differently about your own work, you know, looking back on it and connecting maybe something from this collection to, you know, an older one?
Yeah. It was in the beginning very strange for me to look at all the works I've done because it was the first time that I really looked back at things, and it was as if I was going through my whole diary. And I realized throughout the making process of the exhibition how important the exhibition space and the museum space is for me.
Because I think it's actually one of the reasons that I decided to do one show a year, because I think the exhibitions are a very good combination with the shows, because it shows the work in such a different way to such a wider audience as well. Like the shows are very exclusive, and you definitely feel the energy of the collection, but you miss out on the details, like the craftsmanship, even the deeper storylines and the inspirations, and that's something you can explore in the exhibition.
So I definitely want to make enough time to keep on developing the exhibition so that people can explore the work up close and in a more personal way. And it was also the start of making some aerial sculptures, just because I was thinking about the spaces and I've been working with all these different artists. I just felt like going into that new adventure. Yeah.
Talking about people exploring things in a personal way, you are actually adding something this time around that is very personal. It cannot go more personal than that. Do you want to tell people here about it?
Yeah. For the first time in Brooklyn, I'm going to construct a new creation live in the atelier. So, inside the museum, I'll be working on a new design by hand. And I'm also inviting people, like visitors individually, to join me in the making process. It's a very beautiful hand technique, and I think that's really a way that people can literally feel what the process is of a couture garment, and they can be a part of it. And to me it's also about the conversations that happen, because this...
Happens inside my atelier. I'm working really hands-on with the people there, and it's like a collaborative spirit that I want to bring into the exhibition here as well. So I'm going to record the conversations that happen, and the most inspiring parts of the conversations will be embroidered inside the garment at the end. So it really becomes like a time capsule of this moment in time in Brooklyn, and I'm sure that the people that will join me will also influence or inspire me in unexpected ways. So it might lead to other adventures as well.
Yeah. And I mean, there's so many different elements in the exhibit, you know, your own work, fossils, bones, artwork, furniture. How complicated was the gathering process and the connecting process?
Yeah. Um, it was one of my favorite parts because I'm always doing that. I'm always working with artists and other people, and it was very intuitive. Like when I started working on the exhibition, I already had so many people in mind that we just started to approach people, and there was such enthusiasm. And a lot of artists have actually created works especially for the exhibition. Um, so it was really joyful and intuitive. Yeah.
Was anybody like, what do you mean you want my stuff in a fashion show?
Um, not necessarily. I do know that some natural history museums, um, what I recall from Matthew, had some difficulties understanding that relationship, um, but mostly it has been very positive. Yeah. Yeah.
And so, is it going to go somewhere next, you know?
Um, we are in conversation with multiple museums. Um, we hope to bring it to a few other places in the US before going to Asia, but um, I cannot say anything at this moment. But um, it will be here until December. So that's a long time.
Are you going to be making the garment until December?
Yeah. Um, but I cannot be here all the time, of course, because I'm working on a new collection. So I'll be in and out. Um, and I'll just be here as often as I need to in order to hopefully finish it. Yeah.
How many people work with you in your atelier?
Um, we are around 20 with the team, and then towards the show it gets bigger. So yeah.
I mean, I think one of the extraordinary things about you is that you have, you know, managed to create a life and a career as an independent designer/artist, whatever we're going to call you. How hard has that been?
Um, I have made decisions to keep on focusing on couture, where of course people around me would advise me to go into the ready-to-wear because that's the most common way of doing or having a brand in fashion. But as I have an artist mind, it's just a very intuitive decision to do it my way. And I feel very proud that I can focus on couture and that is so pure in the atelier. Like we create one-of-a-kind looks for people, and that's how the whole atelier is kept alive. And I really hope to be able to keep on doing that, to show that there are different ways to work in fashion, and couture has an important place in fashion as well. Yeah.
I mean, what kind of sacrifices does it involve doing this all yourself?
I think the biggest sacrifice is that I would like—I'm not creative the whole day. Like in my ideal situation, I would be designing and creating the whole day, seven days a week. But that's not the case because I'm also running the studio eventually. Because yeah, even if you have a team, it involves so much. So I think that's a sacrifice where a creative director for a bigger brand might have more time to focus on the creations alone. But on the other hand, my biggest luxury in life is my creative freedom. And if I would go into ready-to-wear, there is a lot of constraints, and all the techniques that I'm developing would not be possible in that realm. So I really have ultimate creative freedom, and that means so much to me. And I'm trying to protect that as much as I can.
Yeah. I mean, I think the designers for big brands, besides not having to do the organizational stuff, also probably have nicer vacations.
Probably. Yeah, absolutely. No, time is definitely limited for me. I wish there was more of it, definitely. But I really stand behind my decisions here. Yeah.
Do you think it's important to you that you're based in Amsterdam and not in a fashion capital?
Um, I think eventually I could be anywhere. Like at some point I had in mind to perhaps move the studio to New York, um, because the city is so alive and creative and inspirational. Um, there has been a time where I thought maybe to move the studio to Paris, but eventually I always stayed in Amsterdam because um, I like to be in my own bubble as well. I think fashion is a very important part in my life, but I don't want to always be thinking about fashion. And I think if I would be in Paris, um, I think my world would be much more fashion-driven. So I like to be in and out. And I think Amsterdam is a sweet spot for me where the city is creative and my studio is there, but I can be in and out of Paris. So it's a good balance, and that gives me possibilities to also work on the other disciplines and um, not to get sucked into one way of working.
Do you feel pressure from these different industries to kind of become more, you know, of them essentially? You know, like that the art world wants you to be more like a typical artist and the fashion world wants you to be more like a typical designer, you know, and they don't really understand the hybrid nature of your work.
I think years ago, definitely. I think for quite some years within fashion, people have tried to mold me into a more standardized fashion designer or brand. Within the art world, I mean, I had the luck that I was working with Mia from the very beginning actually, but I never really felt pressure on that side. But nowadays, I think people understand that I need that space in between and I need to fly around. And no, I don't really feel it, but I think people have given up that they can put me in a box. Yeah.
Yeah. It's true. You look very kind of fragile and frail, but actually you're very strong-willed, as I understand it.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm very stubborn as well. Yeah. [laughter]
