FIAt lux! Dutch fashion rocks Paris
February 24, 2004
Thank got we are not alone: out there in the fashion world exists a like-minded enlighted entity, to share and compare points of view and purposes: the FIA Fashion Institute Arnhem, The Fashion Institute was founded in 1998 by Angelique Westerhof and Pieter ‘t Hoen as a one year post-graduate fashion design course.
The course was born from the need to create better connections between higher vocational fashion designers and the international work field. The Fashion Institute is post-graduate course of the HKA, funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences; the FIA team collaborates with a group of international guest teachers and a group of Dutch teachers to pass on a blend of knowledge to the students. FIA is the ‘schools of thought’ and travels where the knowledge is (indeed they came to ITS, good boys..). This mobile institution has a home base in Amsterdam.
On January 19th FIA celebrated their 5th year of the fashion course with a fashion show from Generation Five in Paris; 7 young designers faced the market with a defile of their 18 piece collection at the Musee Galliera and a 3 day showroom in the Institute Neerlaindais.
Faye Wilde kicked off the show with a presentation, a Mary Poppins fairy tale mixed with lots of humour and eccentricity. Mada van Gaans’ collection represented a harsh journey through a fantasyland of sensual beauty, David van Cotthem presented a very dramatic collection, a gradual morph from order to chaos. Madelon Spijker’s ‘Le mystere de la femme moderne’ is sensitive and romantic, yet cool and sharp; the subtle and feminine silhouette of Rianne Caminada is about opening up, becoming comfortable and self confident. The collection of Charlotte Albers is a never ending story of rhythm, the sense of repetition is the pulsing heart of the story. Monique van Heist showed through her ‘ruudige frauen’ a ‘male kind of female’ as well as a sexy and messy collection.
Unfortunately we were not there, but, as a Polynesian common saying goes, ‘our eyes are larger than our face’, which, after decoding it, becomes: somebody else was there to see it for us? from the very inside?
..ooh, where is the model to open my show? Nobody knows? Ten minutes to go! I was looking everywhere and there I saw her in the make-up room. Her hair was not finished, my heart was starting to tick faster. ‘I’m really sorry but I have to take my model now’ I said to the hairdresser, but he wouldn’t let her go. Finally I drag her away, and dressed her in no time. In between I discovered that somebody had an accident with café over one of my white silk outfit, we washed it off in the toilet, and hope that nobody saw it? It was great to see the whole collection in a row. I took a distance and a moment for myself to realize this experience, the show was happening in one flow, it was great!
..after yet another night of too little sleep I get up at 6 in the morning. Paris is still sleeping, but I’m wide awake. Today is my first show in Paris! When my assistant Stephan and I arrive at the Musee Galliera, we get very moody: the whole backstage looks very disorganised, models are slowly dropping in and nobody seems to realise that we have to do a fashion show in 3 hours. It scares me big time!
We start ironing my collection, guarding our ironing-gear like hawks, because everybody wants to use it. In the meantime MTV is filming me, asking me questions about how I feel. I honestly don’t know, I just want it to be showtime.
Then, just one hour before the show starts, magic seems to happen. Everything seems to fall into place, people start getting exited, and backstage it gets very relaxed.
Visitors start coming in, and I sneak into the entrance area and get some champagne, to kill my nerves. I nearly loose my breath when I see Andre Leon Tally of American Vogue walking in.
From then on it all goes very fast: music starts, models line up, go on the catwalk, come back, change, etc.
I’m the last one in the show, and then I hear my music. Stephan and I arrange the clothes of my models, they go up, the show is over, and then we all have to have our 30 seconds of fame on the catwalk. I feel extremely happy and proud, because we did it, we rocked Musee Galliera!
Time for champagne!
God save the Queen and the FIA..
