Graduation Shows: Artez – Arnhem

As the last fashion academy Artez held it’s graduation show last Friday. And the saying last but not least does apply here, cause we saw a lotttt of talent.

It was probably the hottest day of the year. Yet the 38 degrees didn’t stop the students, the models and everyone else involved from delivering a great show.

Kris Berden
Kris Berden was one of the students who proved to understand fashion. Her collection was fully built around pleats in al kinds of shapes and size. They were there on a skirt, a top and a dress, which were all in black. The pleats came back in Berden’s grey coats. One ultra-thin and slightly transparent, the other somewhat thicker. All outfits looked great, but maybe the jute top and the black transparent ‘cape’ could have had some pleat-details as well. That way the collection would have been slightly more cohesive.

Britt Tan & Fred Farrow
Two students really dared to experiment with their graduation collections. Britt Tan and Fred Farrow both used a great variaty of colors, materials, shapes and techniques. Britt Tan showed us a bright yellow jumpsuit, a loose knitted orange dress, a skirt made out of all kinds of different pieces of fabric with frayed ends. Her models all wore head scarves. Fred Farrow came up with a few light-colored coats. He used some trenchcoat-inspiration and showed one example with fur and checks. He mixed his coats with printed, colored skirts and tights. On all looks loose pieces of fabric were hanging.
We appreciate the fact that Tan & Farrow both showed some gut with their experimental collections. Yet we feel there collections could have been more cohesive and better tailored. Cause both collections came across as a little messy.

Lotte van Schijndel
Before Lotte van Schijndel’s the models started walking they all stood still on stage in a certain pose. We then could already see some great designs. Lotte van Schijndel made a collection with a classic feeling. Loose clothes, long silhouettes and plain fabrics. The blouses and coats were all without buttons. A few waistcoats gave the models some shape. There was no fuss; Van Schijndel didn’t add anything unnecessary. And that’s a good thing cause minimalism is hot in fashion these days!

Piotrek Panszezyk
Piotrek Panszezyk took the hottest fashion item of the moment, the jumpsuit, and gave it a whole new classy image. He gave all (of his many) designs a feminine, classic twist by adding some sort of airy trail to them. He showed one in black, one with lace on the sides, one white, one red, one purple. All looks varied slightly from each other, yet were still an obvious collection. The only misplaced item was an animal printed fur design. It didn’t look feminine or classy and had no connection to the rest of the collection. One other thing we didn’t understand were the loose ends on – for example – the olive green short and the collar of the purple outfit. But altogether Panszezyk’s collection was pretty impressive.

Melissa Siegrist
One last great collection we want to highlight was that of Melissa Siegrist. She designed womenswear with a very masculine touch. She mostly used grey and showed some perfectly-tailored shorts and blouses. She gave her collection a sporty vibe by adding polo’s and shorts made of jersey fabric. And her transparent pair of navy-colored pants just fit in perfectly.

Graduation Shows: HKU – Utrecht

Yesterday 25 students of the HKU (Hogeschool voor de kunsten Utrecht) presented their graduation collections. In a beautiful location, called Winkel van Sinkel, they all gave their own little fashion show. The event was named ‘Platform’, yet each student could give his/her collection it’s own name. But apart from the name, they also had to come up with a theme, a collection (of course), the styling, the make-up, the choreography and the music. So you’ll guess they’d been working on this for months.

All the hard work was definitely visible; we saw some great collections.

Let’s start with Mariko Ferrier. Her theme was ‘The beauty of the ugly truth’. Her models first walked on stage very slowly, but started to walk faster towards the end. Her clothes were a mix of beautiful and ugly details. She, for example used light transparent fabrics combined with heavy, thick woollen parts. Her pants, her jackets and her tops all had wholes in them. They were hanging together by thick threads of wool. We loved the dip-dying she used, yet the music was awful.

Then we had Barbara Langendijk. She called her collection ‘Me versus My identity’ and was inspired by the search of her own identity. Her models stepped on the runway in towering high shoes and wore eye-catching glasses. Barbara had used her own shadow in her designs, which therefore had very high shoulders. She came up with strange combinations of fabrics like velvet and very thin transparent ones. An item we very much liked, was her beige cape.

The presentation of Mark Stadman, a fashion communication student, really stood out. Mark, who named his collection ?Mark, took his inspiration from the boy-bands in the nineties. He came up with five totally different outfits to stress the individual characters of ‘his boy-band’. His models had studied strange movements and wore crazy wigs. Mark didn’t design a collection, yet he managed to portray a very clear fashion message.

Esther Vijftigschild used the life’s tale of her Grandmother’s skin as a starting point for her collection ‘The metaphor of skin’. Like your skin can tell the story of your life, Esther did that with her clothes. Her designs were a mix of light and heavy fabrics. They had accentuated shoulders and volume in strange places. The ends of the fabric were decorated with thick wool. The silhouette was long.

Roos Woudenberg designed a good collection of men’s clothes. Not only did the designs look very wearable, they were all made out of sustainable materials too. Shades like brown/deep red were combined with dark blue. Especially the coats looked strong. Hats off for Roos for this sustainable and fashionable collection.

Jan Boelo Drenth’s collection was (like his music) very Gothic. He designed everything in black from capes to trails and cowls. It felt dark and mysterious, like he intended it. Jan used many different fabrics and created lots of volume. His great passion for couture was visible is lots of small accents he’d put on his garments. The good thing about this collection was that it was cohesive and became more dramatic with each outfit appearing on the runway. The skirts and the trails became bigger with each look. That’s how a good collection works. Well done.

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