Winde Rienstra Fashion Week Amsterdam FW2014

Ask any Amsterdam fashion week visitor what show they’re looking forward to and chances are big “Winde Rienstra” is the answer. Those people were not disappointed tonight. While Frisian singer Nynke Laverman – dressed in Winde Rienstra – sang a song in Frisian young girls with buns high on their head on towering high wooden shoes slowly entered the runway. They looked long, lean and serene in their off white and mint colored creations. Inspired by her own roots, Fryslan, Winde, more than in her previous collections, focused on real clothing instead of just her wooden constructions for this “STJERREN OAN IT FIRMAMINT” collection. It made her looks more ‘real’ but still the designs were true pieces of art. The structured knitwear, the long sheer fabrics as well as the sparkling, sequined creations and the designs created at the Tilburg Textile Museum. Perfectly balanced, each look as impressive as the one before. And as if we didn’t have enough time to glaze at the beautiful handmade looks at the end all girls appeared once more. Standing on spinning boards the models gave us one more extra look at their attires, which shined as a flickering light in the dark, like stars in the firmament. Amen.

Winde Rienstra SS2014 Amsterdam Fashion Week

At Winde Rienstra we were all hanging on the edges of our seats, scared one of the models might take a tumble. Even with the help of the male seaters, who accompanied them and held their hands almost till the end of the runway. That’s how high and uncomfortable the shoes were. They were pretty though, made out of see through crystal-like platforms with touches of blue and green and straps with small wooden balls. Yet without focusing too much on the footwear there were outstanding clothing pieces as well, inspired by abandoned Russian country homes. As a male voice slowly spoke endless lines in Dutch and Russian creations made out of wood and felt very slowly followed each other on the runway. A lot of black felt with white lining, pink degrade and some floral prints were in the mix. Small bags were tossed around the models’ shoulders, blue dots were the accents on a series of looks and golden studs were the detailing on belts and shoulders. The last outfit, a tiny body piece with cut-outs shown by the only model who walked on her bare feet, was completely covered in studs. A Forgotten Path; interesting collection… food for thought.

Winde Rienstra Catwalk Fashion Show AFW FW2013

The collection of Winde Rienstra in 10 words. Mexican & Japanese influences. Modern. Monumental. Natural fabrics. Tape. Wood. Strong.

Winde Rienstra & Marije de Haan Catwalk Fashion Show SS2013

Winde Rienstra
Standing here for the fourth time, Winde Rienstra is not a new face anymore at Amsterdam fashion week. She’s slowly putting herself out there as one of the new great talents showing here. And so far, she’s doing a good job.

Rienstra’s work is known for the handcraft, strong details, graphic shapes and the fact that she’s not afraid to experiment with several and sometimes complicated materials. And that’s what she showed us again today. The show started with a video portraying the different materials she worked with for this collection in a kaleidoscopic way. We saw sequins, silk, wool, and even pieces of Lego. Materials with totally different characters, but Rienstra knows how to make them work together and how they can intensify each other. Soft and hard reunites effortlessly.

We saw some long, silk dresses in soft colors like white, pale blue and salmon combined with wooden keen-edged constructions and revised with embroidered details. A faux fur skirt had knitted flowers on both sides. And the shoes, made of Lego that made the models cradle sometimes, screamed structure.

Although her designs may not always be easy or comfortable to wear, it was a nice collection. Rienstra knows what she’s best in, but is not afraid to renew herself. And that’s what we like about her.

(Eva Dusch)

Marije de Haan
Uncommon runway models walked in this afternoon’s Marije de Haan fashion show. Bearded, tattooed, stout, short and old guys played the part of Marije de Haan’s sailor men. They sported sailor underwear, carried bottles of beer in leather sleeves in their hands and did in fact appear slightly drunk.

Marije created striped ‘underwear’ shorts, checked buttoned tops and what appeared to be two combinations between a cape and a blouse. Dutch flag details were visible on a leather-ish/fringed, three colored jacket, a knitted scarf and a top with a flag attached to it. One of the guys even wore a line of dirty, striped and checked red  – white – blue flags around his neck.

Two tough bearded guys were dressed in the most adorable designs; one nude colored lace ensemble and a heart printed pair of pj’s. We can already picture them strolling around in the harbor on their Palladium boots on a Sunday morning.

“That can half up the sails that can swallow the moon. And he drinks, and he drinks, and he drinks once again.”

 

Winde Rienstra Amsterdam Fashion Week Preview

Family business
When I catch up with Winde she tells me she still has a lot work to do on her collection. Winde: “Right now I’m working from 09.30 AM till 02.00AM almost every day. Luckily I’m getting some help too. I have two interns, my father is helping out with some of the wooden constructions, my brother and his girlfriend are working on the shoes and my mother is, besides cooking for me, giving an extra hand on the handwork. So it’s like a family business.”

Handcrafts
Besides her family Winde has two groups of people helping her out with the collection. “I am working on a project about handcrafts called “Spinning a Yarn” with people from different cultural backgrounds and part of the project is to ask them to collaborate with me on this collection. One group of four (a Dutch woman, an Iranian, a Chinese lady and a Turkish woman) is creating different handcrafted elements for the collection. The other group of ten women is working on floral embroideries, which eventually can be seen throughout the collection.”

Nomad
A modern nomad tribe was Winde’s concept of the collection, which will include a total of eight looks. “I am doing research about authentic tribes and nomadic modern tribes, I wanted to focus on the way modern tribes work and combing that with the way authentic tribes used to bond by doing needle work together. Modern nomadic tribes nowadays mainly exist online. You go on the internet to find people with the same ideas and interest, people travel online. That’s what I want to portray.”

Mystery shoes
The shoes seem to be the biggest mystery of the collection, yet Winde does dare to tell us a little more of what we will actually be able to see during the show. “Slow fashion is still very important for me, so there will be lots of handcrafted pieces. I’ve used wood (naturally), silk and fake fur. I have created my own transparent print by using the Ausbrenner technique.  And I will show more transparent items, as well as graphic shapes and loose-fitting dresses.”

This autumn Winde’s collection will be exhibited in Utrecht for three weeks from the 7^th of September, but for anyone who can’t wait her collection can be seen during Amsterdam Fashion Week (online as well!).

Winde Rienstra will show her Spring/Summer 2013 collection on 14 July at 03.00 PM

AFW FW2012 LAB-Show: Winde Rienstra & Marije de Haan

The last LAB- shows of the day.  It was up to Marije de Haan en Winde Rienstra to close it down this thursday night. And we have to say, a great closure it was. Two totally different collections, but both with some stunning pieces.

Marije de Haan
Contrast seems to be the keyword in the work of this young designer. And it shows in every element, from A to Z. Starting with her sources of inspiration: she explores the world of people that seems to be the most distant from hers: criminals. Already  during her time at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague, where she graduated in june 2010,  she was fascinated by the obscure side of life, searching through police documents. And she did so for this collection.  ‘I don’t know why it fascinates me that much, maybe it’s because it’s a world so different from mine, which makes it very interesting’, she tells.

For this show it was American criminal Black Bart that inspired her. She takes us back to 1877, when he was one of the most famous robbers in America. Black Bart was familiar for the notes he left after every robbery. But is was especially his style of clothes that got her. Because no matter what, he was always dressed properly, wearing a three- piece suit and a bowler hat. But to keep anonymous he always wore something under his bowler that covered his face. And that she translated in some extravagant headpieces, like a blouse worn as a huge scarf covering a models face or a huge collar raised until the eyebrows. We also saw the classic menswear suit, but in a rough way. Like a leather pea coat or a denim blouse.  And you must have noticed there were real man walking down the runway, among which Ferry van der Nat. ‘Yes, I used older men as models, because they have this typical faces which suits so well with the story.’

Winde Rienstra
Graduated for Fashion Design in 2009 at the School of Arts in Utrecht, Winde Rienstra made a huge leap forward in the world of fashion with here strong, architectural shapes. As one of the few designers to promote slow fashion, she ended up as one of the three finalists in the Green Fashion Competition last year. ‘The environment is very important to me and I’ve always been eco- friendly in some ways.’ But she must admit it’s sometimes hard to find some good, eco- friendly fabrics for her designs.’

Today she showed here for the second time with an outstanding collection that made some people even speechless. The collection, based on a painting from Dutch painter J.C. van Schagen, was a perfect combination between strong and soft, feminine elements. Just the way she wanted it to be. ‘To give it that feminine touch is really important to me. I like feminine clothes, I wear only skirts myself too. I never wear trousers. And it’s also really nice to see how the hard and soft elements intensify each other.’ But it was also the strong 3D- effect that made this painting so special to her. ‘The light that falls on the painting determines the shapes and 3D- effects you see. So it changes all the time, which is so interesting.’ She translated that in big, sculptural 3D- pieces and all made from natural fabrics like silk, cardboard and wood. Like a cubist maxi-skirt made from silk or huge cardboard plateau shoes, which made it very difficult for the models to walk. According to the loud applause after the show this is probably not the last we will hear from this young talent.

Winde Rienstra en Gomes Esser Design Backstage AIFW SS2012

The second part of the LAB-shows was filled by Winde Rienstra and Gomes Esser Design. The handcrafted designs – and especially her shoes – were a favorite of the audience, while the futuristic creations of designers Aleyda and Denise of Gomes Esser Design also got a lot of admirers. We also went backstage to capture the tension.