COLLECTIE ARNHEM

C O L L E C T I E A R N H E M 2 0 1 7

FREEDOM! INCONVENIENCE! MADNESS! AND A HARD-BOILED EGG

We have arrived on top of the mountain, on which we have been trying to balance for some time now. The collection emerged from a longing, a yearning for a world of our own, free from restrictions. The design process became a personal journey into what freedom really means. Using this as their starting point, the designers created the shapes intuitively. The collection offers an alternative view of what clothing can be. It is all about the tension between control and freedom.

Our hunger for the unknown is stronger than the sense of safety we find in the familiar.

After an elaborate experimental phase, elastic became a prominent design tool to create silhouettes. In different ways the elastic has been used to ‘draw’ onto the garments, through which prints and shapes emerged. When using elastic, coincidence plays a vital role. It offers a way to control and constrain. This always gives a unique character to the designs. The volumes face forward. They occupy the space around them and radiate energy. These monumental forms, created with the use of felt, cherish the body. With their odd, surprising volumes, the shapes engage directly with the space. In contrast, body-hugging shapes in soft, transparent materials create an appealing friction. In the search for new silhouettes, ideas of masculinity and femininity have been left behind. A yearning for sensuality has been essential. This manifests itself in fluid fabrics, which subtly hint to the body they conceal and reveal. A cheeky homage to everyday life gives the collection a bizarre aspect: the world created by the designers and the real world meet and confront each other. For example, the designers made references to classics such as the polo shirt and reinterpreted comfortable trousers, turning them into renewed designs.

The collection is made completely in yellow, a limitation that offered the designers a way in which to exercise control as well as giving them a sense of freedom. They explored the entire spectrum of the colour yellow. By using silkscreen printing they created a wide colour range in which different shades create friction within sets of garments. Structure and high-glossed materials create a more intense colour perception. The designers developed textile designs by way of action drawing on material, in which coincidence was part of the process. Within the prints, a tension is created by capturing the naïve chaos in plastic coatings and craft. As a collective, the designers of Collectie Arnhem took control into their own hands and visualized their newly regained “freedom”.