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| Caught in Colour, 1997 - test shot |
Caught in Colour was our first collaboration. Initially conceived for a Dutch design competition, that required a 'full range collection', with the restriction to only present 3 outfits. We started off with writing a manifesto. To challenge the jury, and to challenge ourselves.
At the time, 1997, the heyday of 1990s minimalism, we wanted to find a way to break free from preconceived 'good taste'. We wanted to explore what would happen if Concept would take over Function, Design would take over Wearability, and last but not least, what would happen if we would go crazy with Colour.
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| Caught in Colour - Manifesto, summer 1997 |
To free one self from one's habits, and convictions of 'good taste' (after all we were trained at ArtEz Arnhem, known at the time for Dutch conceptualism) proved not that easy. One of the tricks we used to invite Risk and Randomness into our design process, was mutual designing. We would sit opposite of each other, set an alarm, and switch our sketches every 5 minutes, and continue drawing.
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| Caught in Colour - sketches, summer 1997 |
One of the competition's restrictions, to present a full range collection of 3 outfits, tempted us to design hybrid outfits; total looks that contained at least 4 different garments in one, and that transmitted a complete different message from every angle.
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| Caught in Colour - Final sketches, summer 1997 |
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| Caught in Colour #1, 1997, studio shot, 2 sides |
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| Caught in Colour #3, 1997, studio shot, 2 sides |
We made it to the competition's semi final in the World Fashion Center in Amsterdam. Not a gathering place for the avant garde, as we were to find out. Our participation was not a succes. When our outfits paraded the catwalk, the audience literally went silent and was dumbfounded. The jury not any less. We were dismissed.
Teachers from our school who had come to support us, were shocked. We might have killed minimalism, but the world, or at least the Netherlands, was not yet ready for it...
It took us a week to recover and to realize that it maybe wasn't so much about our work, but about the context. Our designs were a statement against mainstream, so probably a mainstream competition was not the best place to present it. We decided to create our own context by extending our concept to a photo shoot. We built a setting in our studio, and we spend a week with our friend Jessica Helbach on Art Direction (and indeed our model for the shoot).
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| Caught in Colour #1, official shoot, fall 1997 |
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| Caught in Colour #2, official shoot, fall 1997 |
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| Caught in Colour #3, official shoot, fall 1997 |
These photo's then appeared in DUTCH Magazine, accompanying an article by Nico Velthuis in februari 1998. As this was the magazines first international edition, it brought first recognition from abroad. Notably from a Japanese founded shop for avant garde fashion in London; The Pineal Eye. At the time run by Yuko Yabiku and Nicola Formichetti (click here for an article from The Indepent from june 1998). Later that year they invited us for a solo shop window installation, that took place in december 1998.
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| Caught in Colour 1997, Dutch Magazine, februari 1998 |
