FASHION VS. ART at SCHUNCK

Alexandre de Vos for Clash project 2016

4 March – 21 May & 25 May – 6 August2017 Location: SCHUNCK* Glaspaleis, Vitrine 

A multidisciplinary exhibition that questions the relationship between fashion and art. Curated by FASHIONCLASH and organized in collaboration with SCHUNCK*.

Fashion occupies a prominent position in our contemporary culture and is one of the largest industries in the world. But is it art?
The status of fashion within the art sphere is an everlasting subject of debate. There are legendary designers who identified themselves as artists such as Elsa Schiaparelli, who declared in her autobiography that she considers fashion design not as “a profession, but as an art.” Nowadays many prominent designers such as Martin Margiela, Miuccia Prada, Karl Lagerfeld and Marc Jacobs reject this statement.

Within the academic sphere and the world of young designers there are many examples of cross-overs with art and autonomous approaches to fashion as a form of art. The multidisciplinary FASHION VS. ART exhibition displays a selection of work by fashion designers who in their own practice question and challenge the boundaries of fashion as a form of art. With their playful and innovative approach to fashion they stimulate our imaginary world and question our perception. Ask yourself: Is it art or is it fashion?

The ‘clash’ in FASHIONCLASH represents the encounter between cultures, artistic disciplines, audience and fashion. FASHIONCLASH believes that the art of fashion can stimulate critical debate about the role of fashion within our society and the world of art.
FASHIONCLASH presents the art of fashion not only by scouting outspoken avant-garde designers and providing a platform for upcoming talent, but also by organizing cross-over projects such as the CLASH project. Since the first edition in 2009 the CLASH Project challenges every year ten artists and designers from different artistic disciplines (all non-fashion) to transform their practice, both materially and conceptually, into a ‘wearable’ fashion outfit, that can be presented on the catwalk during FASHIONCLASH Festival. The perfect opportunity for creative minds to step out of their comfort zone, to play and experiment!

More information: http://schunck.nl/agenda/fashion-vs-art/

Marlou Breuls

Opening:
Saturday 1 April 2017, from 5 p.m. onwards
Taking place at the same time will be the opening of Paint it Soft and Not So Soft; Bernardinuscollege final-year art exhibition (1 to 30 April 2017); and the interactive installation, Emulate / (Ne) Plus Ultra State: the ‘Take-away’ Collection (mezzanine)

Exhibition opening times:
Tuesdays to Sundays from 9 a.m. to 23 p.m. SCHUNCK* Glaspaleis, Shop window. The presentation will undergo a changeover halfway through the exhibition period.

Designers/artists
Part 1 (4 March – 21 May)
Aina Seerden, Vandaag de Toekomst, By vanharten, Chris van den Elzen, Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck, Elvira ’t Hart, Femke Agema, Statement made by Jade, Pot Luck, Mieke Kockelkorn, Minou Lejeune, Pleun van Dijk (reborn), Sanna Schubert, Sidi El Karchi, Vera Gulikers


Part 2 (25 May – 6 August 2017)
Vandaag de Toekomst, Antoine Peters, Charlotte Van de Velde, Femke Agema, ISIS ELSA FEE, Statement made by Jade, Marie-Sophie Beinke, Marlou Breuls, STEVEN VANDERYT, Tiel Janssen Design, Vere van Hal

STEVEN VANDERYT 

Femke Agema

Collaborative Unit Project - Introducing Caroline Zaidan

BLOG #1: Introducing Caroline Zaidan

COLLABORATIVE UNIT PROJECT: FASHION MAKES SENSE

FASHIONCLASH in collaboration with students of University of the Arts London (UAL) – London College of Fashion

FASHIONCLASH is always looking to collaborate with future fashion talent. This time we are honoured to work with and challenge the minds and creativity of students of the University of the Arts London (UAL), London College of Fashion. During this Collaborative Unit project (February – June 2017) FASHIONCLASH will work closely with students Caroline Zaidan, Isabelle Violet Thibault, Susanne James and Eleftheria (Ellie) Karipidi on the topic ‘Fashion makes Sense’, this year’s FASHIONCLASH Festival theme.

“How Does Fashion Make Sense?”
Today's fashion industry is a reflection of society with a strong focus on aesthetics. Our society approaches fashion as a mostly visual phenomenon and doesn’t always see the nature of the interaction with the body (of the wearer), despite the fact that fashion is the most intimate form of art, as it is literally worn “on the body”! As a second skin, clothing also enables us to express ourselves and helps us make sense of the world. Inspired by the issue “Fashion is Losing Sense,” FASHIONCLASH is focusing on the theme “Fashion Makes Sense” in 2017. Using the question “How Does Fashion Make Sense?” we want to engage in a dialogue with the public (consumer-designer-industry-education), because we believe that no change will be possible without interaction with the public.

During the Collaborative Unit project, we challenge the students to create an interactive awareness marketing campaign for the public that can also inspire and encourage the fashion industry to improve insight and engagement between fashion and the body and engages on the following issue: How can fashion (designers, consumers, and the industry) nowadays truly connect with the body and human beings instead of being just a simple aesthetic of a symbolic phenomenon?

We will of course keep you up-to-date on this lovely project and share the outcome!

 But first, let us introduce team member #1: Caroline Zaidan.

Caroline Zaidan

Caroline Zaidan
www.carolinezaidan.com

AGE & COUNTRY: 23- Switzerland (originally from Lebanon)
STUDY: Msc Applied Psychology to Fashion at London College of Fashion/UAL

Describe yourself in three words: 
Passionate, hard-working, sensitive.

What's your super power?
Focused & tenacious

What’s your favourite song, food and movie/TV-show at the moment?
 I can’t stop listening to a french rapper named Nekfeu.

How would you define fashion?
My secret garden, I can hide or expose myself through it.

When did you realise you wanted to work in/are fascinated by fashion?
 Since I’m a little girl, I would pick up the clothes for each member of my family.


What fascinates and/or inspires you in daily life?
When someone dresses up, is confident about it and tells about him/herself through the clothes. Not because society asked for it.

Can you tell us something about your study, projects you've been working and/or career path? At the moment I’m working on my thesis which is about self-discrepancies within fashion context: to which extend society, media dictate what one should or shouldn't wear and what impact this has on mental health.

Why have you decided to participate at the FASHIONCLASH Collaborative Unite Challenge? FASHIONCLASH seems to have the same vision about fashion as me and their interests correspond to mine thus my choice to participate to their project.

(How) Does fashion nowadays make sense to you?
 No, the way it functions makes it appear the opposite of what it is supposed to be.

How do you think fashion can truly connect with the body and human beings  instead of being just a simple aesthetic of a symbolic phenomenon? 
 We all need to stop comparing ourselves among us. Media need to stop sending wrong messages. Fashion should not be driven by money and profit. Because it is so close to our souls it should be a manner of expressing ourselves without any shame

What can we/the world expect from you? Now, near and in the future? 
I hope I can help fashion make a step forward by applying psychology to it: make the industry more human, a place of creation, passion, pleasure instead of this pressure everybody feels.

Act! Cut! Play! in Antwerp

On 9th of February Act! Cut! Play! was presented in Antwerp at De Studio. In Addition to the screenings of the films, there was an installation of the costumes from ‘The Parallel Pyramid Platform’ and designer Marie-Sophie Beinke from the film 'iii'.

Take a look at images below, photography Ian Segal.

ACT! CUT! PLAY! is a interdisciplinary project that aims to bring the quality of fashion film to the next level by creating a prominent role for the performing arts (theater/dance maker). Three teams based of Dutch and Flemish theatermakers, designers and filmmakers where challenged to jointly investigate the possibilities and limits of their disciplines within the genre of ‘fashion film’. Starting with the stories of theater/dance makers three short fashion films are developed and showcased internationally in both the fashion, theater and art world.

Three films & Participants

Film: ‘Your approval is not essential’ Scheuller de Waal (fashion designers – Philipp Schueller en Rens de Waal) Jelena Kostić (choreographer) Leen Michiels (filmmaker, MosoTheCat)

Film: ‘The Parallel Pyramid Platform’ Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck (performer) Daniel van Hauten (filmmaker, Wedovoodoo.Tv) Emmanuel A. Ryngaert (modeontwerper)

Film ‘iii’ Suze Milius (theatremaker, House Crying Yellow Tears) Marie-Sophie Beinke (fashion designer) Femke Huurdeman (filmmaker)

More information: http://fashionclash.nl/act-cut-play/

European Fashion Talents Design Competition

Serbia Fashion Week and the National Chamber of Fashion Serbia organize a international platform to identify and support young designers – European Fashion Talents Design Competition.
The aim of this competition is to give young designers the opportunity to achieve and develop an international career in the fashion industry. Interested candidates must be students of fashion design or from an other creative department. Young designers under 30 years may also apply.

The ones who win the first three places will receive amazing awards and support in furthering theirs careers in fashion.  The deadline is March 18, 2017

The requirements and information listed here

ACT! CUT! PLAY! on display in Amsterdam

ACT! CUT! PLAY! was presented in Amsterdam during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Amsterdam on Saturday 28th go January. The screening took place at Westerunie venue in the framework of the official schedule of the fashion week. Aynouk Tan moderated the event with a contextual introduction  on the fashion film and a Q&A with the makers.
In addition there was an presentation at Vlaams Cultuurhuis De Brakke Grond from 26th until 29th of January.
Next screening is organized by MoMu Antwerp at De Studio in Antwerp on February 9th. -> info.

ACT! CUT! PLAY! is a interdisciplinary project that aims to bring the quality of fashion film to the next level by creating a prominent role for the performing arts (theater/dance maker). Three teams based of Dutch and Flemish theatermakers, designers and filmmakers where challenged to jointly investigate the possibilities and limits of their disciplines within the genre of ‘fashion film’. Starting with the stories of theater/dance makers three short fashion films are developed and showcased internationally in both the fashion, theater and art world.

Three films & Participants
Team 1 – Film: ‘Your approval is not essential’ Scheuller de Waal (fashion designers – Philipp
Schueller en Rens de Waal) Jelena Kostić (choreographer) Leen Michiels (filmmaker, MosoTheCat)

Team 2 – Film: ‘The Parallel Pyramid Platform’ Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck (performer) Daniel van Hauten (filmmaker, Wedovoodoo.Tv) Emmanuel A. Ryngaert (modeontwerper)

Team 3 – Film ‘iii’ Suze Milius (theatremaker, House Crying Yellow Tears) Marie-Sophie Beinke (fashion designer) Femke Huurdeman (filmmaker)


More information: http://fashionclash.nl/act-cut-play/

Forza Fashion House Maastricht Market #1

On December 17 + 18 FASHIONCLASH, organized the Forza Fashion House Maastricht Market #1 at De Brandweer.
The main focus was on presenting local designers and providing a platform to sell their work.

The designer market featured the designers: Bluedenîmes, Aïcha Gerards, DV Jewelry, Lies Wambacq, Studio Myr, Soolzter, Que Onda Vos, Bien There, Corien van der Heijden, Durentina's Design, Joelle Boers Studio, Nina Führer, Rebel in the House, Suzanne Stohr, Rachel Prijs, Wander.Ful and Domino Juno.

forzafashionhouse.nl

images by FASHIONCLASH and Sem Shayne

Act! Cut! Play! Fashion Films

On December 16 three brand new fashion films premiered at Lumière Cinema in Maastricht, and will from now on travel the globe in the international fashion-theatre-, film- and art world.  

Act! Cut! Play! is a new interdisciplinary talent development project that has the ambition to lift the quality of fashion films to a higher level. Three teams existing of a designer, theatre maker, and filmmaker from either the Netherlands or Flanders, where challenged to work together to investigate the possibilities and boundaries of their disciplines and the provided ‘format’ of the fashion film. With the incorporation of a theatre maker, the three teams where challenged to make the narrative an important element within the films.

Act! Cut! Play! is an initiative of FASHIONCLASH, Flemish Arts Centre De Brakke Grond and MoMu – ModeMuseum Provincie Antwerpen.

Project format
These three interdisciplinary teams collaborated on the development of three short fashion films from start to end. Previously, fashion films were mostly used by brands as a moving lookbook for their new collections. Over the course of the last years the fashion film has been on the rise: fashion film festivals are popping up across the globe. The films are becoming more innovative and visually striking, but what stands out is that in both national as well as international fashion films the narrative is under developed, and subordinate to its visual qualities. This is precisely what makes this an excellent opportunity to combine fashion, theatre and film and mold it into the right shape.

Première & Presentation
On December 16th the three films premiered at Lumière Cinema in Maastricht.
After this the Act! Cut! Play! films will travel all over the globe starting from Amsterdam at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (26 – 29 January 2017 in De Brakke Grond 28 January 2017 in de Westerunie), Antwerp (De Studio, 9 February 2017), Cinedans (16 -20 March 2017), FASHIONCLASH Festival (29 June – 2 July 2017) and several other stages including international fashion film festivals.

The films

‘Your approval is not essential’
Scheuller de Waal (fashion designers - Philipp Schueller & Rens de Waal), Jelena Kostić (choreographer), Leen Michiels (filmmaker, MosoTheCat) 

When a chance supermarket encounter unlocks untapped passion in an ordinary woman, her grey life quickly goes into sensory overload. ‘Your approval is not essential’ sheds a colourful, whimsical light on what happens when you let go of your inhibitions and – out of the blue – start embracing life’s quirky pleasures.

Your approval is not essential
photo: Nikola Kostic

The Parallel Pyramid Platform
Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck (performer), Daniel van Hauten (filmmaker),Emmanuel A. Ryngaert (fashion designer)
"The Parallel Pyramid Platform" is a highly aesthetic and witty game show in which sixteen contestants construct a gigantic pyramid shaped sculpture, working with and against each other, in order to make it to the top first. A film that explores the friction between the individual versus the collective. A never-ending universe in which, as the sculpture grows, blue becomes red. How one can only replace the inevitable void by start building.

The Parallel Pyramid Platform
photo: Joris Hilterman

iii
Suze Milius (theatremaker, House Crying Yellow Tears) Marie-Sophie Beinke (fashion designer) Femke Huurdeman (filmmaker)

In the world of iii, senses double themselves in order to make one woman complete. It's time to reckon with this shit! 

iii
photo: Joost de Haas

Björk wears Marlou Breuls

Singer Björk wears creation by talented designers Marlou Breuls for the Day for Night Festival in Houston.
Björk is wearing an outfit from Marlou's successful graduation collection ‘de (non) conformist’.

http://www.marloubreuls.com

Life of Ornament - Viewmaster Projects & FASHIONCLASH

FASHIONCLASH teamed up with Viewmaster Projects within the context of the Life of Ornament project that is on display since December 1. Two gigantic video art works are projected on the Eiffel building in the Sphinxkwartier in Maastricht.
In addition we have invited performer Daan Couzijn and fashion designer Maarten van Mulken to create new work inspired by the Sphinx ornaments. In cooperation with filmmaker Daniel van Hauten the will create a music video / fashion film in which they combine their disciplines and fascinations with the heritage of the Sphinx.
Result will premiere on December 16th at Lumière Cinema and will be presented at various events in 2017.


Life of Ornament is a crossover project combining cultural heritage and time-based media. Artist duo Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács present two video works in which the renowned ceramic decals of Sphinx and the Société Céramique come to life. Projected large onto the historic Eiffel Building’s facades, the once motionless, decorative prints on saucers, cups, plates, and teapots transform into animated leitmotifs that flow into one another, creating new juxtapositions of the imagery. Using modern digital techniques, the ornaments ‘detach’ from the decorative dinnerware they embellish. The two video works – one highlighting floral prints, the other, landscape motifs – honour the outstanding design of Maastricht’s manufacturing industry and function as a contemporary animation, entwining different cultures and style periods.

Life of Ornament runs parallel to the Eiffel Building’s renovation. In the evening, when refurbishing work halts, the two video works illuminate the scaffolding scrim surrounding the building. The projections will partly move with the different stages of the restoration.

Trailer Life of Ornament from Viewmaster Projects on Vimeo.


www.viewmaster-projects.com

Acreati x Forza Fashion House XMAS Pop-Up

Acreati x Forza Fashion House XMAS Pop-Up 
1-18 December
at Entre Deux Maastricht

Looking for unique Christmas presents with a story? From Thursday 1st December untill Sunday 18th December, fashion platform Acreati will present its XMAS Pop-up Shop & Exhibition at Entre Deux (Level 2) in collaboration with Forza Fashion House Maastricht. Centrummanagement Maastricht will provide an interesting cultural program as part of the Magic Cultural Festival in Maastricht.

The pop-up features an outspoken selection of independent fashion designers together with contemporary photography. With a special storytelling approach Acreati and Forza Fashion House introduce you to a new shopping experience, where you get an insight on designers’ collections through photography and art.
Visit the shop and discover hard-to-find designer items!

THE DESIGNERS: Bluedenîmes + Ebby Port + Roche Rouge + STRIKKS + ESP + Ling-Ling + LZL + marlich + MEES Verena Schepperheyn + Narrative Made + Ratna Ho + Studio Mulder + Tomcsanyi
THE PHOTOGRAPHERS: Berber Theunissen + Luca Pernini + Jeremy Audet + Ingeborg ten Hoopen (artist) + Paula Faraco + TJ Tambellini + Saskia Boer + Pauline van Beusekom + Cat Stevens + Nina Raasch + Naomi White + Peter Holliday + Ling Lin + Samuel Zeller.

MEET PHOTOGRAPHER VALENTINA VOS 18 DEC: 14:00-15:00
Fashion photographer Valentina Vos (30)will be giving a Fashion Photography Talk on Sunday 18th of December at the XMAS Pop Up & Exhibition. Valentina studied at the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts & Design. She has worked with various leading fashion magazines such as Glamour NL, L'Officiel NL, Glamcult, JFK Magazine, Vice, news papers suchs as Volkskrant and Het Parool, and companies Tommy Hilfiger, CitizenM Hotels, Men at Work, Hema, Ace & Tate and many more. She is known for her elegant polished fashion snapshots, combined with humor and originality.

http://www.forzafashionhouse.nl/xmaspopup
https://acreati.com/

all images by Karen Kikkert