Shanghai Gesture
Millstone ruff by the meter.
In 2011 the textile department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie asked Alexander van Slobbe to do a workshop with the second years at the department. As he just finished a workshop in Shanghai with students of a fashion department he was very enthusiastic to continue the theme of the Golden century and relations between Holland and China. He decided to give us the assignment to design a fabric based on this theme.
After seeing these beautiful paintings at the Rijksmuseum I was still dazzled how I was ever to even come close to such gorgeous fabrics with my design. As Alexander van Slobbe asked me to look at the Golden century and weave my fabric inspired by these times. I was however amazed by the way they create such volume in fabric when making a millstone ruff collar. By pleating the fabric and applying starch, these collars became enormous. And a most outstanding piece of the garment. Knowing this fabric was going to be made into a winter coat I knew exactly which material I wanted to use. I had always wanted to work with this amazing felting wool. This is wool straight of the sheep, combed and washed, just before they are about to twine it into yarns. When you touch it, it feels like it is about to melt in your hands. The delicacy of this extremely soft material and the voluminous structure would create this grant richness that I was looking for. Wanting to work with this material meant I had to weave this fabric myself, as no machine is able to handle this kind of material. As the wool is not even a yarn yet it needed to be handled with extreme care and delicacy. And by translating this millstone ruff pattern into a design for the fabric the material worked wonders to it. Creating exactly the feel of fabric I desired.
Following the workshop of the textile department finishing 8 fabrics Alexander decided to ask graduated fashion designers to design winter coats out of our material. My fabric was chosen by Lotte van Keulen, who is a fashion designer graduated from Amfi.
In June 2011 three workshops given by Alexander van Slobbe came together in the Exposition Shanghai Gesture in the Willet Holthuysen museum in Amsterdam. And in November the Amsterdam Museum decided to take all coats into their collection.
