Winner G-Star RAW Talent Award 2008

This men’s collection is inspired by an important mega trend going on at the moment in Europe: spirituality. Spirituality to me is a very mysterious, airy-fairy, dark and even creepy thing. This collection shows a parody on today’s spiritual trend. Therefore the shapes and meaning of a spook or ghost and a bat have been used as a source of inspiration for this collection, in a very playful way.

Our society is aimed at the external and that is why we more and more often long for to go back inside our head, body or our own little world, cut off reality. The pieces in this collection are one by one very body-covering and form some sort of shell in which you can ‘come to yourself’, your own tiny world. The collection has a young, humoristic and not-yet-grown up character and is especially aimed at boys in the age of 16-22.

What I think is important about fashion is that a design remains a real piece of clothing and that it will be wearable in that way. Designing to me is not about creating a total new shape, but about turning an in shape already existing piece of clothing -preferably one which is usually not that popular- into an attractive garment. That is why non-popular garments often are an important source of inspiration to me.