D.A.I. by Du Qinling

Meet Du Qinling, the Chinese fashion designer behind the label DuAsInfinity living in the Netherlands. She started her own label DuAsInfinity (aka D.A.I.) after graduating from the  London College of Fashion.

What made you realize that you wanted to work in (fashion) design?
 I am always attracted to well made and design objects, textiles, crafts and furniture.

Why did you choose fashion?
Clothes are what we need every day. For me, working in fashion feels like working in something essential to our life needs, not only physically, but also spiritually.

What are your sources of inspiration?
Music, Arts, Films, books.

Why did you decide to participate in FASHIONCLASH 2018? What are your expectations?

FASHIONCLASH exists since 10 years, so it must be an excellent event celebrating fashion. I would like to meet many professionals in fashion or media fields, gaining more press.

B E K H O M O R E H E N A by Zahra Hosseini

'Take a minute to respect others faiths, now take a minute to respect my faith, instead of destroying it, let us take a minute to listen to the vibrational frequencies and how they can affect our mind, body, and souls. Let''s listen to the effects it can have upon us' 

Photography: Brooke Roberts-Islam, Aurelia Anomalie

Zahra Hosseini, also know as Sooty, is a young Iranian designer committed to using her talent to do something good in this world. Her mission is to bring back the beauty of Islam, fighting against the misconception of Muslims in the media and today's society. She aims to do this by focusing on the peacefulness of 'Azan',  the Islamic prayer call, recited by the Muezzin. This prayer is recited, three times a day;; at dawn, noon, and sunset, from the speakers of mosques in Muslim countries. Azan, meaning 'to hear, to listen, and to be informed about'. 'Allahuakbar'' meaning 'god is great', is repeated during this. This beautiful word has been destroyed and begins to distort our perceptions in the media. She urges to to  not be fooled by what is being shown through media and let us only judge with our own minds after being shown the truth.


As a young Iranian woman, she stands before us to be the voice of young Muslim girls and to share her story, a story of ones journey of self-discovery through her own faith and culture.  It is this research, combined with scientific explorations that allowed her to unfold a deeper meaning into a journey we all share. In her performance/collection,  'B E K H O M O R E H E N A'  she has created garments that young Muslim girls can wear to make themselves feel connected to modesty decreed by their faith while allowing for the opportunity clothes provides for expression and connections to the modern world. Her work is about young Muslim women defining for themselves how they want to dress and how they want to be seen.  The original chador was a way to protect woman from prying eyes of men in a patriarchal society, therefore it completely covered the body and didn't expose the feminine shape. Her clothes express the struggle for the new Muslim female identity. One that expresses the values of their traditions but that also keeps the essence of their faith and identity, in a world that may perceive to be undersiege, by other cultures and within. She is keeping what is positive about being a young Muslim woman, emerging from the shadow of the patriarchal.

Photography: Brooke Roberts-Islam, Aurelia Anomalie

She tells us: 'I hope to open people's eyes, away from bias and stereotype. I ask to give it the respect it deserves. Don't judge it by what has been shown through the media. Look at it with a fresh perspective. I'm not trying to convert or persuade anyone, I'm only sharing my personal story. I hope people can be respectful, positive, and supportive. We are at a time in our society where the real truth is being overshadowed by the lies we are fed. Let us be proud of our faith and where we all as individuals come from and let the beauty show you the truth.' 

You can discover Zahra Hosseini's performance during the Show Programme at the SAM-Decorfabriek on Saturday the 16th of June (get your tickets online here). To learn more about her, visit her website at www.zahrahosseini.com or follow her on instagram @ZS.HOSS. 

Enni Lähderinne presents Boy Meets Evil

Photography: Pauliina Maus

Meet Enni Lähderinne, a designer from Helsinki, Finland. As a fashion designer she studies gender as a social phenomenon and ways to express and interpret one's gender through clothing. From a biological viewpoint there are only two genders but in reality there are as many genders as there are humans. One of her goals as a fashion designer is to find ways of self expression through clothing for those who don’t feel like they fit in the gender binary, or the mold our history and society have created for the most of us to fall into. Can this mold be broken with fashion?

Her current collection is however closer to the theme of the FASHIONCLASH Festival 2018. 'Boy Meets Evil' explores the world of Herman Hesse's Demian and Abraxas and the belief of God and Satan being one. The collection studies the changes one has to go through to find themselves, as well as the eternal search for a true understanding of God.




Enni Lähderinne will present her  collection at the Show Programme on Saturday the 16th of June. Get your tickets here.


What made you realize that you wanted to work in (fashion) design?
Fashion is one of the most multidisciplinary fields of design out there. It keeps me on my toes and pushes my mind to keep on finding better solutions time after time.

Why did you choose fashion? 
Considering all the fields of Design, fashion speaks to me the most. I feel like fashion is the way I present my thoughts about the word the best way. It is my canvas in changing the world.

What would you say are your main achievements in your career?
Finishing my BA studies in Fashion and winning the MTV Break Costume Design Competition.

What are your sources of inspiration?
Usually it’s something that inspires or irritates me. I’m a person who enjoys watching documents, experiencing art, reading and just generally wandering around. These are the ways I use to find subjects that tangle my mind a one way or another. Usually I find myself being interested in the way human mind works and how this can be seen in art and design and society. From there on I keep on specifying my choice of research. I keep making questions and if I can’t find the answers right away, I go forward with the chosen subject of the research. The designing progress is my way of finding the answers to the questions I presented to myself in the beginning.

Matteo Carlomusto presents MURCIELAGO

Photography: Enrico Berni

Matteo Carlomusto is an Italian menswear designer. In his first  capsule-collection, exhibited in a show and in a presentation during Pitti Uomo, he experimented a mix between sportswear and traditional female costume of the Islamic culture, the burqa. Further in his work he has brought together the conservative world of Islam and the sexual practice of Bondage. The aesthetics of his new collection, MURCIELAGO SS19, builds upon this concept, however merging it with a fresh and rude taste. The collection is a claim and exaltation of erotic charge, arrogantly riding the road like a green Lamborghini Murcielago.

MURCIELAGO SS19 will be presented at the Show Program on Saturday the 16th of June at the SAM-Decorfabriek. Get your tickets here.

What are your sources of inspiration?
 My work is constantly evolving. At this moment of my creative process I can say that my greatest source of inspiration is photography, I’m in love with Joel Peter Witkin, Antoine D’Agata and Nan Goldin’s tales . Through their images I can my mind travels. I am very attracted to bodies: from the animal world to the human figure in all its forms, I love to see them together as a single body that gives life to something new. For this reason I love the raw part of every simple thing, but at the same time I’m fascinated by the human mind, which is able to give life to something unique that is not found in nature. I hate the social impositions ... and it is precisely for this reason the reading of my projects is interpreted in the best way by subcultures and denigrated communities, like the young queer who made a new image, that nature has not given them and the society tries to hide , but actually exists. And it has always existed. I find my inspiration in the submerged world that I love to shape with my personal taste.

Maarten van Mulken presents VOID

Maarten van Mulken, a fashion designer from Limburg, develops (mostly) women’s collections.
Has has participated in various FASHIONCLASH events With his collection Kill Your Darlings, presented at FASHIONCLASH Festival 2017, he has won the Radikal Fashion Film Award by Pascal Baillien.

Maarten likes to create worlds trough fashion by trying to get back old techniques that people have forgotten, while at the same time moving forward to the future and telling a story with his creations.
His new collection 'VOID' interprets the theme of 2018 FASHIONCLASH Festival, by exploring the sense of emptiness experience by people, a void that used to be filled by religion. The collection aims to fill this void, to give people an everyday armour against it.

Maarten's collection will be presented at the Show Programme on Saturday the 16th of June at the SAM-Decofabriek. You can get your tickets here.

What made you realize that you wanted to work in (fashion) design?
I’ve always been fascinated by art and design because they can distract but also attract you to do things and to lose yourself in a way. For me it’s not just fashion but every discipline that makes us curious again and lets us to think further than just ‘normal’ life. Fashion design was for me the best outcome in this. It’s starts with the person that wears the clothing, for me fashion starts at the base from where you can create complete worlds around it.

Interdisciplinary Designer Amy Ollett

Meet Amy Ollett, an English fashion designer. 
She specializes in an interdisciplinary approach to fashion, combining her training as a dancer and choreographer with design. The work explores the interface between dance, fashion, movement and design and is informed by the properties of fabric, garment and choreography to develop form, shape and conceptual relationships. This is also showcased in her new collection 'MOVERE'. The collection has led into the development of a new performance design methodology that allows expression and physicality to go beyond the skin, encouraging practical and artistic coherence of both body and design.

 he vulnerability of the body against fabric allows for a relationship to unfold, and garment begins to form from a reactive movement of the bodies communication. The collection identifies how and where the body communicates through fabric informing the garment resolution. Thus, allowing the design and movement to become intrinsic to one another. Through movement and choreography, the development of design allows a new opening, in which to discover innovative and constructive movement vocabulary that can be used for design purposes.

Amy Ollett's collection will be presented at the Show Programme at SAM-Decorfabriek on Saturday the 16th of June. You can get your tickets for the show here.

What made you realize that you wanted to work in (fashion) design?

During my training as a dancer, I was always drawn to avant-garde imagery within the fashion industry which influenced my movement as a choreographer. However, I did not see its potential as a combined field until making my move into Fashion education. Through my Master's Degree, I discovered new methods to develop fashion design with the body and movement. This discovery has made me want to work within fashion design to transform the way we experience clothing in connection to our body. 


Why did you choose fashion?

It wasn’t until my last year of my Bachelor's Degree that I began to understand the relationship I was having between my own movement and design. However, my vision for design was not meeting the movement I wanted to fulfil and I felt unsatisfied as a mover. Consequently, I knew I needed to focus on the design aspect of my practice and bring fashion to the surface once and for all. Fashion was creating that space in-between to materialise, leading to extensions of movement I could not achieve with my own physical body. This is what lead me into doing my Masters Degree in Fashion.


Cheers to Brand Bier!

The 10 year anniversary of FASHIONCLASH Festival also marks their first ever collaboration with Brand Bier, the oldest brewery in the Netherlands.
Although it may seem like an unlikely match, FASHIONCLASH and Brand Bier share the same key values, such as a belief in new talents, coherent (heavenly!) creations and pushing the limits, however paying respect to tradition and craftmanship. But most importantly, it is an understanding of the value of ‘togetherness’ and the enjoyment of the now. Beer has never been just about beer. It is this sense of ‘togetherness’ and community building, a fraternity around beer, starting from the monks in the Middle Ages, that can still be seen in the present day. Today, this community is built around people who are passionate about beer, resulting in perhaps the most common drink to have achieved a god-like status. From the monks Middle-Ages until today, this group of devotees continue to display their devotion for beer - their religion. Therefore, cheers to Brand Bier for continuing the tradition of devotion to beer!

www.brand.nl

Make-up, My Religion!

Amsterdam-based cosmetics brand ELLIS FAAS is on a crusade, but a different one from religious crusades. We want you to follow your own sense of beauty. So-called makeup experts keep telling consumers which shades and shapes are trendy or not, and by doing so they are taking away the joy of experimentation. People have become afraid. They've been convinced there is some sort of mystery as to what is "right" or "wrong". But in doing makeup there is no right or wrong. ELLIS FAAS is fighting to bring back the joy of doing makeup, by trying to take away silly rules an preconceptions, and reinstall the pleasure of trying things out. All ELLIS FAAS shades are suitable for every age, style and skin tone – so whatever you choose is up to you. If you look into the mirror and are happy with what you see, you're done. If not, just take it off and start again. It's only makeup after all...
www.ellisfaas.com

Haesung Bong

Haesung Bong is a South-Korean designer, who benefiting of full scholarships from various competitions in South-Korea, has attended some of the most prestigious design schools in Europe such as Asmod Paris and ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem. He describes the tone of voice of his designs as serene, with a sense of isolation and internalisation narrated by visualised concepts, artisanal textiles and structural silhouettes.

Photography: Oscar Raaijmakers

His current collection, 'Box Gallery',  delivers a moment of cute, lovely and experimental, with a focus on material and fabric with structural shapes. 


Haesung Bong will be presenting his collection at the Show Programme at the SAM-Decorfabriek on Saturday the 16th of June. You can get your tickets to the show here.

What made you realize that you wanted to work in (fashion) design? 

When I was in middle-school, one day, as an extracurricular activity, an art teacher invited us to an art center and they showed a film about communication and fashion designers. It was inspiring, I realized what I have to do. 


Sculpted Beauty by Iva Kujundžić

Meet Iva Kujundžić, a Belgrade based artist/designer, who describes herself as an endless dreamer, passionate creator and true entrepreneur. She has won the FTDC contest at Serbia Fashion Week, giving her the opportunity to participate in FASHIONCLASH. A designer with the soul of an artist, her new collection, 'Sculpted Beauty', was inspired by Rodin's sculptures and the art nouveau era. The dominant veins in Rodin's work provided a direct link to the art nouveau era, known for its dynamic wavy lines. Moved by the emotion in these sculptures, she wanted to channel these in her collection, which she achieved through leather sculpting and handwork. The dominant veins in Rodin's work provided a direct link to the art nouveau era, known for its dynamic wavy lines. It was this anatomical challenge that provided her with inspiration to play with textures through a monochromatic lens.

Iva's collection will be presented at the Show Program on Saturday the 16th of June at the SAM-Decorfabriek. Get your tickets here.