Loved Clothes Last

When the Rana Plaza collapse occurred on 24 April 2013, I was working at the trainstation, selling coffee and snacks to mostly rushing travellers. I read in shock and sadness about the eight-story Rana Plaza commercial building collapsed due to a structural failure. The search for survivors lasted for 19 days and ended on 13 May 2013, with a confirmed death toll of 1,134. 

In the months after the disaster, I saw people coming out of the trains with big bags full of cheap cloths. The first * Primark in the Netherlands just opened in Eindhoven, and the news of what happened to their clothing makers apparently didn’t stop anyone from shopping. I swore I would never shop at Primark, not even enter, or at any of the known Fast Fashion brands.

I was at that moment in time the most broke I ever was, but I mostly wore secondhand cloths. And still do. It wasn’t until 2016 I got my first custommade batik clothing. A luxury I saved for to buy and let make. Clothing pieces I still own and wear now. 

Mended armpit in my favourite batikdress

But a piece of the same fabric behind it

The batik dress I wear the most, got damaged. And I repaired it to keep on wearing it. I usually save pieces of the batik my cloths are made from. I ask the tailor to keep the cut off. They are useful when repairs are needed as with my favorite dress.

I always mended cloths, at first mostly to alter them or make them fit better. As I started buying more cloths that were pre-loved, I noticed I don’t mind previous mends.  They are actually a plus sometimes, knowing someone enjoyed the outfit before me. 

Since mending is an act of resistance against Fast Fashion and a tool used in the Fashion Revolution as protest. I wanted to share this day my thoughts on mending with examples from the past. These mends bring the wearers closer to us and show how caring for what we wear has been part of our history, and is hopefully part of our future too.

Mended parts in batik TM-616-1

For the talk I gave at UvA I showed how mends can actually help us with provenance research. The mends tell us the clothing piece was worn and not just collected. An important distinction to make when dealing with objects collected in an colonial setting.

So how can we find out more about the provenance of a batik without knowing who made it. Here some details of a batik from the Wereldmuseum collection in Amsterdam, inventory-number TM-616-1. It is designed as a sarong, so a hip cloth, with a kepala on the left, with a motif build up in squares and triangles, and a badan, the largest part, with a bird of paradise repeated on it. When I got to see it in the depot I found several mended parts. Small holes were carefully sown with matching thread. The selvedge, the edges of the batik were damaged and bigger tears were sown up. Clearly the wearer mended these parts so she could keep wearing the sarong.

Sarongs were and are worn as hip cloths. It was usually worn by women together with a kebaya, a kind of blouse. The kebaya developed from the beginning of 19th century from a long length to a shorter one ending at the hip. The outfit was not complete without a pair of slippers, which were often decorated with beads. These slippers would damage the bottom of the sarong, giving the tears we often see repaired on batiks. So this batik was worn. 

The digital database of the museum gives just a small insight in the actual data available, see here the info on this Batik. It will have the date: That can be when it was donated/gifted, acquired, or made. Location, this is often added by a curator or conservator later. When objects were acquired during colonial times, they didn’t really care about the people making it or wearing. It was just another object to display. At the Wereldmuseum they have of most objects still the original inventory-cards. The older ones are handwritten, the newer ones are typed on a typewriter. Through the inventory-cards I could find who donated the batik, which gave me a possible wearer, and through that info a possible location it was from and clearer way of dating the batik.

Mends can tell us also about if the clothing was worn multiple times and was important to maintain, even maybe expensive or precious, so mending was needed to keep on wearing it. This reveals to us something about the wearer. With the research on the white kebaya (link previous post), we got in our hands many kebaya’s of which the wearer was unknown. Not because there wasn’t someone who was living at the right time at the right moment to be the wearer, but because their children were told they never wore such a garment or didn’t tell them anything about it. 

The fact it was often carefully stored, already tells us, it was important enough to keep. It could either be the wearer kept it as a memory of a past time, or as as a keepsake of loved ones. This is often the case with batiks, when researching their provenance in museum collection. They were donated not by the wearers themselves, but by their husband or children.

The white kebaya’s were often still with the actual families, providing us with possible data on the wearer. 

Kebaya of Annie Glaser on display at KB in Den Haag, October 2024

Photo by Koen de Wit

For the exhibition at KB we showed the white kebaya’s together with the wearers stories and a photograph of the wearer, sometimes also in white kebaya. The oldest kebaya we had on display had such wonderful mends. It was the kebaya of Annie Glaser, the grandmother of Isette Min-Buyn.

Annie Glaser was born in Semarang on Java in 1877 and passed away in in 1959 in Doorwerth in the Netherlands. She was a Dutch teacher who befriended Raden Adjeng Kartini and her sisters in 1902. They often met and wrote letters to each other. The kebaya is of a high quality, made of fabric from European decorated with handmade lace possible from Sumatra. The kebaya was kept her granddaughter Isette Min-Buyn and we hope to find a place for it in a collection were the story of the kebaya can be told. 

Small careful mends in the white kebaya of Annie Glaser

Photo by Koen de Wit

To read more:

Post on the Fashion Revolution website 'Five things fashion history can teach us about clothing longevity'

Other post 'Can we mend our relationship with repairing clothes? – #MendItMay'

Blogpost 'Too Sad to Talk'

Blogpost 'Zaman of the Batik influencer'

Blogpost 'Ecological, Sustainable & Colonial Footprint'

To take action:

The next Mend In Public Day will be on 26th April 2025!

The idea is simple: get out into your local community and stitch in protest against disposable fashion. Amidst busy Saturday shoppers, we will repair our torn pockets and broken seams and spark conversations on making Loved Clothes Last. Read more here!

Happy Mending!

* The first Primark in the Netherlands was opened in 2008 in Rotterdam

How to get Batik into This New Normal

In a time it seems everything is taking place online it has been quiet on my blog. Not that I didn’t write or because you haven’t visit. The opposite. My blog has been visited so much, especially in the beginning of the pandemic and I am happy with all the new readers that reached out! Yesterday I joined this amazing online launch on a fully virtual made Batik exhibition and I thought I needed to write an update here on these past few months.

Opening of Virtual Exhibition by Kibas

Batik under covid

When Covid became a global pandemic it had a huge impact on Batik. The sales in Batik dropped and most Batikworkshops on Java stopped producing for several months. Batik depends, must like other local crafts unfortunately, on tourism. Not just tourists from abroad, but also Indonesians themselves. For example Lasem and Pekalongan are both cities that have many people visiting just to buy Batik and of course they combine it with trying out the food specialities and going to Museums or events. I saw myself last year how Lasem is catering more and more to tourism and it had a great positive impact. Old buildings, like Rumah Merah or Rumah Oei, have been restored and turned into cultural hotspots with great guest-rooms. Cultural Batiktrips got organised by different parties, like Awesome Lasem, were a group of people would just hop from Batikworkshop to Batikworkshop while enjoying nature and food. 

Most Batikworkshop have specific deals with specific parties, like resellers or shops, but also organisations that do events and tours. It is great for Batikowners and makers since they can focus on making Batik and not on the marketing. For all parties connected to a Batikworkshop they can connect different businesses and all make profit from the growing interest in Bartik. However as soon as Covid happened, it showed how fragile this system is. If sells dropped and people can not travel, all parties get affected. However Batikmakers get affected the most, they can not do anything else then just produce Batik. And if they stop, all else stops also. For the resellers, shops and organisations there is little they can do if they can't sell any Batiks...Sooo it was very good to see that actually some organisations really made an effort in providing income for the Batikmakers. A lot start making facemasks, but also just did fundraising campaigns so Batikmakers could get paid even without Batiks being sold. Kesengsem Lasem were I gave my talk last year was fast to response to the pandemic. They focussed first mostly on giving informations on wearing masks and on how to disinfecting working surfaces so people could continue working safely. They went around town giving cleaning products to batikmakers, but also foodsellers. It shows such dedication to keeping your whole community safe. Really inspiring!

Zoom/Talk/Insta lives

Of course most organisations turn online. Which is great for me, but I wonder how great it is for the Batikmakers. In the talks from Indonesia I see mostly the same people, often the bigger Batik bosses and heads of all kinds of yayasans (stichting/foundation). Smaller Batikworkshop owners and batikmakers aren't really invited to talk Batik. However interesting topics do get discussed, mostly in Bahasa Indonesia and sometimes in English. One question keeps popping up: How to get Batik into This New Normal? Batik is under constant threat;  Competing with the Fast Fashion Fake printed textiles called 'Batik Print' and it is getting extinct since most Batikmakers are above 50 years old and younger generations see no future in working long laborful days for little payment. Batik need to become fair, safe and independent. It need to become sustainable. Not in the future, but Now.

And so are much other things in our lives that need to become sustainable, it is all connected and we are running out of time. Of course in this moment are hands are also partly bound. There is only so much you can do from afar and reaching the Batikmakers was difficult even before this pandemic ruled the world.

The New Normal

I was invited by Modemuze to be one of the bloggers for their exhibition 'The New Normal' in collaboration with OSCAM. I didn't write on Batik, but I was happy to put some of the feelings and thoughts on current events on digital paper and reflect on the role fashion plays in it all.  My reflecting post Creating shared experiences at a distance focus on the work shown by Karim Adduchi and other pieces from the Modemuze collection that are made from a same drive. Looking at what people make together even without being able to actually be together works inspiring and healing. 

Creating shared experiences at a distance at The New Normal at OSCAM

A work, or well a dress, that I highlight in my blog, I saw in the exhibition 'Mode op de Bon' in the Verzetsmuseum, also in Amsterdam. The exhibition showed the creative and often sustainable solution people came up with to be able to wear nice, even fashionable cloths during war time. One dress stood out right away. It is a full length Gala looking dress which from up-close turns out the be made from all small patches. The dress made during the Second World war is made from no less than 1280 'silks'(‘zijdjes’). These pieces of silk were giving as a kind of promotional gift with Turmac cigarettes. This specific series has all kinds of Wayang figures on it. Just collecting enough pieces to make the dress would have been already a challenge. It is unknown if the dress was ever worn or who even made it. I like to think this project most have given the maker comfort and hope, imagining the first party in freedom were this dress could have been worn.

Dress from Turmac silks
collection Museum Rotterdam, inv. nr. 68832
 Photo Sabine Bolk

The exhibition at OSCAM in Amsterdam (NL) will be on display till 2 November so go check it out and on Modemuze you can read all the blogs including mine (in Dutch)

Staying Connected

My Bday Batik Day Zoom - if you would like to watch, please send me an email

While this year moved very slow, it also moved surprisingly fast. When in March are 'intelligent lockdown' started my agenda became very empty. I though I would have much time to focus on my ongoing researchproject Re-telling the history of the (Indo-)European influence on Batik, but it was hard to work without access to the collection, online database and much needed guidance. So the first weeks I spend mostly making plans to fill my week;  I made an stopmotion, I discussed my Art in my home, I was on IG live at aNERDgallery, made an onlineprogramma for the cancelled Tong Tong Fair together with Guave and much more.

I am good at keeping myself busy, but all the cancelling, replanning and recancelling is taking its toll on my motivation. I am trying to focus again on my research and on the works I am making inspired by this research. One of these works, I started last year. The idea was to creating a Batik based on a classic Java Print by Vlisco and hereby return it to it original form. The original form of this specific Java Print being a Batik Tiga Negeri. Negeri from Negara which mean Country and Tiga meaning Three. So believed was that these types of Batiks were produced in three regions on Java in the 19th century in three different styles. My plan was to send the Batik to different Batikmakers/Artist each making one layer of the batik, adding one colour. So that it again produced in three places, but now three countries. The first copy I made I brought to Java were Miss Siti continued on it. In February, just before the lockdown, the Guave ladies picked the pieces up at Miss Siti in Batang. They are so great! 

I just finished a second Batik, today I will boil out the wax and this piece will go first to the USA. It goes much slower this project then planned, but I am happy with this idea of working together abroad and reflecting on this history, the colonial and the textile trade. So a little sneak peak for now.

Making of

After dyeing, but still with wax

Saya harap semua orang tetap sehat dan sampai jumpa lagi, Hati-hati dan Kembali!

Stay safe, saty healthy and take care of yourself & your surroundings,

Kind regards & warm wishes,

Sabine

Slowfashion x Batik by Guave

Opening of my exhibition 'De reis naar batik - Dag en nacht' 

wearing custom made reversible kimono jacket by Guave

Photo by Shuen-Li Spirit

The ladies of Guave started their slow fashion brand in 2017. Myrthe and Romée contacted me and we met in the Botanical garden in Leiden (NL). We talked about Batik; how printed textiles with batik motif wasn't what they wanted and actual Batik was want they needed. We kept in touch and I followed the fashion-steps they made.

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The lovely ladies of @helloguave launched their new Summer collection a few weeks back💙They asked me to be make a Batik Statement Photobooth during their launch💙Made an Indigo inspired backdrop using a Vlisco Wax Print & Batik tulis from Jeruk to match with their collection💙 Congrats ladies with your beautiful new collection💙 ————————— #Repost @helloguave with @get_repost ・・・ Happy faces at the launch of our summercollection! 😄 Standing in front of the batik statement backdrop by batik expert and friend @sabinebolk! One of our missions is to keep this beautiful art and cultural heritage alive, by turning it into modern, wearable pieces 💙 More images of the new collection soon! • • • • #helloguave #madetolast #slowfashion #handcrafted #madewithlove #summercollection #indonesiantextiles #expressyouridentity #textiledesign #identities #batikfashion #identitystorytelling #textilehistory #batikcap #comingsoon #fairfashion #batikeverywhere #batikstatement #guave #sustainable #sustainablefashion #launch #launchparty #indigo #batik #fashion #batikstatementphotobooth

A post shared by Sabine Bolk (@sabinebolk) on May 23, 2018 at 2:41am PDT

Me wearing the reversible Guave skirt

photo by Koen de Wit

When they launched their Summer collection in May this year, they invited me to do a pop-up Batik Statement photo booth. The collection made with blue and white Batik cap and pink recycled textile from Enschede was an instant favourite of mine. Their pattern-pattern-pattern photoshoot for the collection was beautiful and I believe the collection is almost sold out. 

I order one of the reversible skirts and asked if they could make me also a custom piece of a Batik from my own collection. I had this lovely Batik Tulis by Gading Kencana which I actually got in to re-sell.  I remembered seeing the ladies wearing wonderful kimono inspired jackets themselves, and asked if it was possible to get one.

Last Sunday I wore the jacket at the opening of my exhibition 'De reis naar batik - Dag en nacht' at Nieuwe Veste in Breda. I absolutely love it! The inside (or outside, depends on how you wear it) is made with a recycled, very soft, blueish grey textile of Enschede Textielstad. They kindly documented the making of, see the pictures below, enjoy!

Making of the kimono jacket

Cutting the pattern

Recycled textile by Enschede Textielstad

The ladies are ready for their next step, a new collection, made in their slow fashion principal, using Batik Cap with textiles by Enschede Textielstad. The collection is a limited edition twinset suit they want to produce at a makers-community in Amsterdam (NL). For this they launched a crowdfunding-campaign on Voordekunst. 

You can support them by ordering the twinset suit, or one of their other products. And best of all, this week (until Sunday 23 December 00.00h) what ever amount you donate gets doubled by VSB Fonds!! 

So go to Voordekunst &

 support the Guave ladies so they can make this next step in their fashionstory!

London Baby

With this recent visit to London, I noticed how my interests are interwoven with everything I do and how I am so much more aware of our history, and how it is interwoven with everything!
We had the great pleasure of spending some quality time with my lovely niece and artist Surya de Wit and her fiancé. Thanks for having us!
Of course I thought I planned nothing, but I fully planned everything, so our program was filled to the max, hehehe!
It was a wonderful visit and can't wait to go there again! Till next time London!

Day 1

In the Underground

Our first full day, after arriving the evening before, started with a visit to the Alfies Antique Market. If you haven't been, it is a real treat for the eyes {and great pie btw}! I finally got the chance to meet Duncan Clarke and see his wonderful collection of Adire African Textiles.

We wondered through the rooms, looking at all the blingbling, fabrics and vintage, and seeing the tiniest cutest dog in the world, after continuing our day at the British Museum.

Blingbling at Alfies Antique Market

Adire African Textiles at Alfies Antique Market

Museum Street across the British Museum

British Museum is big, busy and filled with so much high quality things. We chose to see the Mummies, Textiles & pretty things from Japan. Maybe an odd choice or just the perfect combination, who can tell? However, you can not stop wondering how these things ended up here and how this amount of things present a peculiar history... They don't go much into detail in the museum, and maybe understandably so. Similar like the Rijksmuseum; playing it safe or just presenting the bare minimum {The BBC series 'Civilisations' gives some amazing insights on this collection}.

In the African part of the museum there was a lot of room for textiles, rows and rows of them. And I loved there was so much on Kanga's! Next to a big display, a video was playing explaining how Kanga's travelled from India, to East Africa, to Spain, and other European countries. I know only a little about the history of Kanga, but it seems like an intertwined one, just as the history of Wax Prints, I would love to learn more about it in the near future.

Highlight of the day for me were definitely the three Batiks in the small display about Australia. After learning about the Batiks by Emily Kame Kngwarreye and her Utopia Batik group, I am fascinated by it. These Batiks are from another group of Aboriginal women at the Ernabella Arts in Pukatja in South Australia. I love how they use the Javanese Batik technique to create their own unique style in motifs and colours! Would love to make a journey to Batik down under!

Batiks from Australia on display at The British Museum

Kanga's from East Africa on display at the British Museum

After the British Museum, we went to Liberty. After finding a small sampler-booklet of 'Liberty & CO, East India House' in the travel-journal of a cotton-printers son from 1884, I just needed to learn more about it.
Liberty is kinda the "Oilily of England". Only one big difference; Oilily got their inspiration from Dutch traditional wear and therefor from Indian Chintz, in 1963. Liberty was actually selling Chintz and imitations of Chintz from 1875!!!

Arthur Lasenby Liberty was born in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, in 1843. He was employed by Messrs Farmer and Rogers in Regent Street in 1862, the year of the International Exhibition. By 1874, inspired by his 10 years of service, he decided to start a business of his own, which he did the next year.
With a £2,000 loan from his future father-in-law, he accepted the lease of half a shop at 218a Regent Street with three staff members.

The shop opened during 1875 selling ornaments, fabric and objets d'art from Japan and the East. Within eighteen months, he had repaid the loan and acquired the second half of 218 Regent Street. As the business grew, neighbouring properties were bought and added.[2]

In 1884, he introduced the costume department, directed by Edward William Godwin (1833–86), a distinguished architect and a founding member of the Costume Society. He and Arthur Liberty created in-house apparel to challenge the fashions of Paris.

In 1885, 142–144 Regent Street was acquired and housed the ever-increasing demand for carpets and furniture. The basement was named the Eastern Bazaar, and it was the vending place for what was described as "decorative furnishing objects". He named the property Chesham House, after the place in which he grew up. The store became the most fashionable place to shop in London, and Liberty fabrics were used for both clothing and furnishings. Some of its clientele were exotic,[clarification needed] and included famous Pre-Raphaelite artists.

In November 1885, Liberty brought forty-two villagers from India to stage a living village of Indian artisans. Liberty's specialised in Oriental goods, in particular imported Indian silks, and the aim of the display was to generate both publicity and sales for the store.

During the 1890s, Liberty built strong relationships with many English designers. Many of these designers, including Archibald Knox, practised the artistic styles known as Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau, and Liberty helped develop Art Nouveau through his encouragement of such designers. The company became associated with this new style, to the extent that in Italy, Art Nouveau became known as the Stile Liberty, after the London shop.

- Wikipedia on 19th November 2018

The Department store of Liberty is still very much there, in the center of London. It is an amazingly weird building with Timber framing. Inside are impressive wooden ornaments, glazed tiles, paintings on the ceilings and piles of textiles. It was for me so interesting to see, this relic of Colonial times, very much alive and well in downtown London. At the same time, how many shoppers actually know about this history? 

Liberty Department Store

Liberty fabrics inside of the Liberty Department Store 

Above the entrance of the Liberty Department Store

Inside the Liberty Department Store

Inside the Liberty Department Store

Last stop for the first day, was the Open Studio at the V&A of the new artist in residence, Bridget Harvey! It was so great to actually be able to visit her and get an introduction on her amazing project. She will be looking at the V&A collection from a 'mending-point-of-view' and create new work from that the next upcoming 8 months. How lucky she is, and how deserved! Looking forward seeing what she makes, creates and repairs!

Introduction on Bridget Harvey's residency at the V&A

Day 2

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If you can’t take pictures at the wonderful ‘Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up’ exhibition at the @vamuseum, you just share some other awesome things💕I enjoyed the exhibition so much; it was truly a complete picture they painted of her and I loved everything about it💕So happy I can share this with @suryadewit, @koendewit and @_krean_ , feeling lucky😘#inspiredbyfrida #victoriaandalbertmuseum #fridakahlo #boomerang #baobabbatik #prettythings #family

A post shared by Sabine Bolk (@sabinebolk) on Oct 28, 2018 at 4:10am PDT

The Second Day was all about the exhibition 'Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up' at the V&A. I am preparing a post about it for Modemuze, so more on that in the near future!

It was so good and I was so happy I could see it! I felt so lucky and so close to her. They made it so well, great job!

After the exhibition we were all so filled up with emotions and images, we just eat and sit and talked. We continued a little later and enjoyed the V&A some more. I believe you can go 3 days to the V&A and don't get bored. Or at least thats how I feel about it. I wish I could go there more often!

Lunchroom at the V&A designed by Arts and Crafts movement leader William Morris (1834-1896)

Indian textiles at the V&A

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When everything that inspired the artist is in the same space as the works of that artist👩🏻‍🎨William Morris with his Arts & Crafts movement took inspiration from Medieval Art {Pre-Raphaelite}, next to textiles and other beautiful things from Japan, India and China😍So wonderful to step in this history for a moment and see all these things at the @vamuseum ❣️First; Dutch tapestries from 1500s, the stuff kings put in their drafty castles😲Then textiles from Japan & India and last a tiny corner of the museum café that was designed by William Morris😍 #victoriaandalbertmuseum #london #tapestry #unicorn #patterns #textiles

A post shared by Sabine Bolk (@sabinebolk) on Oct 28, 2018 at 2:30am PDT

Day 3

The last full day was a mixture of muscle ache of dancing the whole night before and enjoying some more Art. We made a quick visit to Surya's Studio while enjoying the lovely Walthamstow neighbourhood. What a pretty part of London, no wonder William Morris got so much inspiration from it and how great that Surya's lives there!
Of course we needed to go to the William Morris Gallery also. This time it was the dot on the i. It is so interesting to see how William Morris is in the middle of this interwoven history and he was definitly in the center of this trip. He designed for Liberty & Co, he designed parts of the V&A interior, his was fascinated by Indian and Japanese Textiles and Art, by Medieval Tapestries and he loved Crafts. It was so great to spend the Sunday at this wonderful place, his Childhood home!

Shop with Wax Prints

Surya's work at her studio

William Morris Gallery

Waterlilies by Monet at the William Morris Gallery

At the William Morris Gallery

Detail of textile design by William Morris

at the William Morris Gallery

Sketch for a wall paper design

at the William Morris Gallery

Detail of textile design by William Morris

at the William Morris Gallery

Garden of the William Morris Gallery

Weaving + Shape Shifting x Books / Busy

= Dutch Design Week 2018

On the market during DDW 2018

"If not us, then who?" Good question! At Strijp-S

Recycled textile by Enschede Textielstad at DDW 2018

Lisa Konno set-up in the Veemgebouw at DDW 2018

First thing I noticed, How Busy It Was! It was Tuesday and Strijp-S was covered with a crowd. Good that Dutch Design got such a big audience interested, but it makes it hard to see more then two or three locations. And with so many many locations participating now, you need to see more locations in order to discover the true cherries of that year. So I totally felt I was missing out!
I didn't had that much time and no time to go a second day, so I decided to go to the locations I liked best last year {see previous post with the label 'Dutch Design Week'}.
I think nowadays you need at least 2 days and enough time to check online which things actually make it to peoples online feeds.
So this years review is just a little peak of this years DDW!

I started at Strijp-S were I got my press-card and a really fun, but heavy goodie-bag!
I made my way through the tinyhouses and bright yellow NS pop-up station towards the Veemgebouw. I went in the 'skatepark' which was as far as I could remember participating the first time, or I never really went in before. From the description online, I marked it as a must-see, but inside the recycled textile-installation was just a garland going through the building...
In the Veemgebouw things got much better. It was less impressive this year, because I really missed the carwash experience while entering the parking-lot, but still I enjoyed what I saw inside.
One highlight definitely was The Swedish School of Textiles. They  had a simple yet affective set-up of experiments by their students. Which were both fun and full of potential. I talked with them briefly and they told me this was their first time here and would definitely participate in future DDW's, can't wait!
Another highlight was again the Craft Council Nederland 'How & Wow Studio'. There were the cutest baby looms I ever saw, Bas Kosters lifejacket robot bags and other pretty handmade stuff gathered in a colourful setting, what's not to like!

Presentation  The Swedish School of Textiles at the Veemgebouw at DDW 2018

Baby loom and handy-crafters 

at the Craft Council 'How & Wow Studio', 

in the background Bas Kosters robotbag, 

at the Veemgebouw at DDW 2018

Part of the Craft Council 'How & Wow Studio'

at the Veemgebouw at DDW 2018

At Bijenkorf during DDW 2018

Modebelofte

After the Veemgebouw I headed towards the City Center of Eindhoven. In the Bijenkorf an artist-in-residence had took place in the roof-top-room, so I popped in to see. I think the Artist had fun making the dripping paintings, but what it had to do with design was beyond me. However, it made a pretty image for a pretty picture.

In the old V&D they hosted again the Modebelofte. Inside of a mixture of a snow-globe and Barbapapa's home, the exhibition was held.  The theme was 'Shape Shifters', so clothing was shown that would transform you, even create a new species by wearing them. Next to the clothing, little projections on the walls showed how the outfits would move. 

It was such a weird realisation not liking the “static” cloths, but liking how they moved. I realised how we often buy our clothing of the “rack” or of a mannequin or picture online and not really buy it on how it moves. Yes, we let 2D models show fashion on a runway, but they move mostly more like ‘clothing-hangers’ if we are being honest {happily this is getting less and less}.

Interesting that by presenting clothing that shape shifts, you actually appreciate the power of clothing and how they can change the way they make you feel, walk or move. How the transformation can and should be part of the fun of wearing clothing!

Modebelofte DDW 2018

Weaving & Books

They have been trying for years now, but I think weaving is really back! I spotted baby looms, weaving with alternative & recycled threads and many books on woven textiles. Next to weaving, the “Artist Book” or maybe better “Artistic Looking Books” are back. They were never really gone, but it was remarkable how many presentations included a {handgeschept} handmade paper book with rough edges, grey-tones pictures & essays in interesting looking typography.

What were your DDW 2018 highlights? And what trends did you notice? Please feel free to comment below! And looking forward to DDW 2019!

'150 Wooden shoes' by Max Stalter at the Veemgebouw at DDW 2018

Book 'Weaving as Metaphor' by Sheila Hicks spotted during DDW 2018

On Strijp-S during DDW 2018