Marie-Lisah Hermkens

What is your name? Marie-Lisah Hermkens

What is the name of your label? I don’t own a label yet. But when I am going to start one it will probably be just “Marie-Lisah”.

Where did you study and when did you graduate? Last January I graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. I graduated with my collection “Omdat iedereen het doet…”. This is the collection that I will be showing in June (during FASHIONCLASH Maastricht 2011).

What inspires you as a designer? I guess my inspiration/fascination is always coming from my life and the people in my life. I try to get as much information as possible from the people around me or about certain subjects. There’s no coincidence in my work, it’s a systematic way of working and finding order in the information I collect. So my inspiration is practically everywhere, but the way of finding a system to get and process information is of a greater value.

Fabrics

Who is your favorite fashion designer/artist? Why? I have a few. If we are talking about fashion designers I will of course name Martin Margiela for his conceptual way of working and thinking. Yohji Yamamoto for his simplicity and therefore great esthetic influence.

There are a few artists/designers that I also really admire… Miranda July, Erik Kessels and Wes Anderson. Maybe not that original, but hey…

What can you bring to FASHIONCLASH Maastricht 2011? I will show my graduation project, which is about being nude. When I grew up I always went to nudist campsites. Because of this the naked human body is just a naked human body to me. I combined this with the fact that when someone does something different from common standards it’s strange, but when everyone does this it’s normal or socially excepted. Like walking around naked. The way I translated this to clothes is what I will show at FASHIONCLASH Maastricht 2011.



Marie-Lisah collection. Photo by Afra Klinkenberg



What do you expect from the FASHIONCLASH Maastricht 2011? I expect a lot of creativity, interaction and discussion about our common passion. Maybe some nice contacts to work with in the future…

How did your experience with fashion started? When did you decide to be a fashion designer? It has always been a secret dream of mine to be a fashion designer, but I always had the idea that it wasn’t something for me. When I studied Graphic Design I stood out in drawing, so with my drawings and little sewing knowledge I went to the Art Academy and got accepted at the fashion department. I never questioned whether it was the right place for me.

What are your goals concerning your career? What are your

ambitions? Where do you see yourself in the future? I think my conceptual part is more developed then my designing skills so I don’t know if I will ever own a label. But it’s also hard for me to think of where to work and only work on ideas and concepts. For now the most important thing is to earn money and get new energy to express myself. Or maybe I will end up doing something completely different and start a nice secondhand-shop or something.

 

 

Edited by Natalia Serwanska