Culturally and socially speaking, clubs and discos can be considered as sensorial and avant-garde environments where creativity, performance and design combine in a radically free and anarchic way to create new languages and visual codes.
The theme of the club, interpreted as an experimental playground where it is possible to discover new and innovative forms, offered a great starting point to the Seductive Precursors event that took place in October during the Dutch Design Week.
Ellen Albers, founder of Eindhoven boutique YOU ARE HERE turned to visual designer Niek Pulles and experience designer Harm Rensink to come up with a special event for the Modebelofte 2014 platform.
Pulles and Rensink put together an impressive selection of designs by fashion graduates from Dutch and international BA and MA courses, creating for them an all immersive environment in the former Bongo Beach Club in Eindhoven.
The curators occupied three main rooms, all characterised by black walls and ceilings with floors covered in white marble-like pebbles, adding a few plants to create a tropical yet alien landscape, an artificial environment borrowed from a mysteriously seductive dream.
While the accessories were showcased in glass displays, the designs were donned by mannequins suspended in the air. The focus was on the techniques, materials, shapes and silhouettes, in an attempt to prompt visitors to question issues such as wearability, freedom of design and radical ideas while considering the future of fashion from various intriguing perspectives.
How did you get involved in this project and what inspired the immersive nightclub-like environment you created?
Niek Pulles: Ellen Albers is the initiator and owner of concept store YOU ARE HERE and asked me to assemble a team for Modebelofte 2014. I asked my good friend and studio partner Harm Rensink to start this project with me. Harm focused on the space/interior and I worked on the concept and curation of the exhibition. We worked around the idea of seduction and the way young designers seduce us with new body shapes, materials and colours. Ellen heard that there was an empty night club in Eindhoven; we went there to take a look and immediately fell in love with the big space.
Between the '60s and the '70s there were a few experimental projects by radical architects including Superstudio, UFO and Ugo La Pietra, about the nightclub seen as a sensorial space. Did you consider any of these radical projects in planning this environment?
Niek Pulles: We did this project very hands on and listening to our gut feeling, without doing any research on what was done in the past. So, no, we didn't consider any of these radical projects.
It is often difficult to pick collections by young fashion designers as they are usually extremely innovative, fun and desirable: was it challenging for you selecting the pieces that had to go in?
Niek Pulles: It all went very intuitively, but we did have a few points and themes in mind - seduction, royal experiment, new bodies and unorthodox methods. Of course it was a challenge and a bit scary, but in the end it was also a lot of fun. New approaches to silhouettes and material combinations and the use of innovative techniques were the key in the selection procedure. We enjoyed working with the young talents since they don't feel restricted by commerce or "wearability", but they create their own universe without posing any boundaries or limits to their imagination.
What surprised you about these garments, the choice of materials, the futuristic cuts and silhouettes, the dichotomy between wearable/unwearable or the fact that, in some cases, these designers seem to effortlessly bridge the gap between men and womenswear?
Niek Pulles: The things you point out are exactly what the exhibition was all about!
You suspended the mannequins in mid-air, allowing in this way people to walk around them and see the designs better: why did you opt for this gravity defying solution, to break the boundaries between visitor and designer?
Niek Pulles: That is one point, but the main reason is that we wanted to create an energetic overview. It was all about the physical attraction as all mannequins looked like they were in the middle of a physical action. The shapes of the body in combination with the garments were there to seduce the visitors. We wanted to create a fashion experience, one energetic scene stimulated by nature, sound and light effects.
What was the feedback of the visitors, did they enjoy it?
Niek Pulles: It was so great to hear everyone's reaction. People where blown away. They didn't know what to expect from the outside and suddenly they entered this extremely heavy space where fashion was right in their faces. Visitors were seduced by the magic of these young designers.
Designers involved in the Seductive Precursors project:
Sonia Aissaoui (ArtEZ Fashion Masters, Arnhem)
Yiyu Chen (ArtEZ Fashion Masters, Arnhem)
Ida Gro Christiansen (Royal College of Art MA, London)
Anita Hirlekar (Central Saint Martins Fashion Masters, London)
Adam Marc James (University of Westminster, Fashion Course)
Flora Miranda (Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp)
Jessica Mort (Central Saint Martins Fashion Masters, London)
Fiona O'Neill (Central Saint Martins, London)
Fien Ploeger (Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam)
Marije Seijn (Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam)
Chiara Siahaan (ArtEZ, Arnhem)
Inna Stein & Caroline Rohner (Weissensee School of Art MA, Berlin)
Charlotte Tydeman (Central Saint Martins, London)
Jurjen van Houte (Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam)
Tijme Veldt (Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam)
Bastian Visch (Royal Academy of Art, The Hague)
Image credits for this post
Photographs by Barbara Medo
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