Modebelofte 2012
When | October 2012
Where | Dutch Design Week Eindhoven
What | Mannequin & exhibition design
Client | de Krabbedans
Articles:
www.thednalife.com
www.design.nl
Modebelofte (Fashion Promise) is an exhibition featuring some of the best designs by this year’s fashion graduates, handpicked by fashion consultant and curator Carlo Wijnands. Designed by Niek Pulles (Heyniek) and Martin Schuurmans, this year Modebelofte at the Krabbedans transports viewers to a future world where a new race is born.
The first thing that hits you upon entering the Krabbedans is a myriad of colours, shapes and textures exploding from painted mannequins. These represent our new future race, according to Niek Pulles of Heyniek. He found the dolls in a warehouse (Gruppo Corso) and decided to play with their features – full lips and no hair – by covering them in black-and-white paint.
The exhibition is encapsulated by a series of wire funnels, giving a feeling of movement through space and time. “The idea for ‘Enter the Funnel’ was conceived in the summer, even before the theme of Dutch Design Week (Enter a Brave New World) was even made public. Intuition I guess,” says Pulles of the theme. “I wanted to create a new universe, and within it a new race.”
The Krabbedans itself has been boarded up from the outside and painted black to create a black-box theme. Inside however, we are greeted by a bright, white open space. “It’s a hefty contrast between outside and inside, something you see on each of the mannequins. “ Covered in black-and-white paint, they all look in the same direction as an army of extremely fashionable warriors.
Pulles had not seen the clothing before creating his design but says “I was delighted when I saw the clothes and met the designers – who were all very friendly by the way. The whole idea just seemed to come together.”
The versatility, craftsmanship and array of colours, textures and patterns in the clothes makes the entire exhibition a feast for the eyes. With popular designs by Lichting Winner Yvonne Kwok, beautiful tailoring by Yohji van der Aa and unexpected volumes by Esther Kruyer among many more, the standard at this year’s Modebelofte was extremely high.
