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| Collage by Manon |
What is your name? Manon Boertien
Where did you study and when did you graduate? I graduated in 2009 from the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU) in fashion design
What inspires you as a designer? Nowadays everyone looks for happiness and the truth in his own way. However, in the past people lived in a community where everyone had a fixed place and role. Happiness and truth was to be found trough God and the family.
Today, everyone is an individual who is detached from the unshakable ties of the past and determines his own life. We can make our own choices and decide for ourselves how to fill our life with happiness and truth. It’s this behavior of people searching for truth and happiness that fascinates me.
Who is your favorite fashion designer or artist? Why? I do not necessarily have one favorite artist or fashion designer. I look for inspiration to so many artists in different disciplines. It can be a movie director, a fashion designer or a music band as well as inspiring people in my personal life.
Some names which are in my top list at the moment are: video artist Shana Moulton, musical groups Neon Indian and Toro y Moi, medieval painter Hieronymus Bosch and movie director Alejandro Jodorowsky.
All these artists create new virtual worlds, philosophical, sometimes-psychedelic worlds. But often with a sense of humor in it. These artists inspire me to go on creating my own philosophy about my fascinations (as I described in the previous question).
What can you bring to FASHIONCLASH Maastricht 2011? I’ll show my new collection: a search of happiness #2. This collection was inspired by : a quote by a French philosopher Jean Baudrillard: "God exists but I don't believe in him”, various religions and their rituals and Zardoz and Holy Mountain – two philosophical/ sci-fi movies from 70s.
The links between these things are the searches for the truth through the use of an "invented" religion, mysticism, rituals and symbolism.
During FASHIONCLASH Maastricht 2011 I’ll show a collection that can be used as ritual garments for my own made up religion. I also hope to translate this into a short film soon after the event.
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| Print test |
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| Sketch of the new collection |
What do you expect from the FASHIONCLASH Maastricht 2011? I hope I can show my new collection to a broader audience, I hope to see many inspiring talents and a lot of different styles. I also expect to see fashion from different viewpoints and perspectives, to meet new people and see old friends and, of course, to have a very nice weekend!
How did your experience with fashion started? When did you decide to be a fashion designer?When I was young, every week I wanted to become someone else, but I was always very creative. At times I was drawing all kinds of strange garments, like for example Egyptian space-outfits or my own wedding dress.
After high school I studied fashion design in Amsterdam because at that time I thought it was the best creative school to go to. I have learned a lot in techniques but I really missed the arty side so I decided to go to the School of Arts where I developed the real love (and hate, which makes it even more interesting) relation with fashion.
What are your goals concerning your career? What are your ambitions? Where do you see yourself in the future? In a couple of weeks / months I would love to make a short film using this collection. With the movie I would like to present my own fictional religion.
In the future, I hope to do many projects in collaboration with various artists in different disciplines. By doing so, I would like to explore my inspiration and concept from multiple perspectives.
Edited by Natalia Serwanska
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