Light up with Lichting

Weirdly enough, the winner of Lichting 2009 last night who got a whooping EUR10,000 cheque courtesy of G-Star DOESN'T have a website so I'll have to wait a bit to post about Ann Boogaerts from ArtEZ whose collection I voted for and am ultimately quite happy she won.

Turns out that at the Lichting event, where seven academies from the Netherlands put on a show, putting forth their two best students, the international panel (consisting of myself, Wendy Dagworthy from the RCA, Lucas Ossendrijver of Lanvin Homme and Garance Dore) had to be quizzed on stage in front of the audience about what we thought of the students' work.  So I spent the night skirting around specific names because a) I was embarrassed about my pronounciation of Dutch names and b) wary of picking out favourites since the other panel members were also tactfully silent.

So hurrah!  Here on the blog, I can be pretty specific about what I liked down to the minute deet.  There were only a few collections that I liked in its entirity and the winner Ann is one of them but there were elements that I loved from each collection…

Ratna Ho was an obvious favourite to win and actually I thought my vote would count for nothing and that Ratna WOULD win.  I was a bit torn with who to go for.  Spirograph-type detailing on bodies, leotards, tights and dresses with My Little Pony (her reference, not mine..) colours actingas the background worked stupendously well. Though when restricted to black, the tribal tattoo patterns also had a purity to it.

Joran de Kok says "Ceci n'est pas une femme" with his andrognous collection that had simulated chest hair and leg hair on tights and sweaters.  I loved this particular jacket with the inverted collar.

Rietveld Academy threw up two grads who have made a delicate art of ripping things up, making them fray perfectly to good effect. 

Erna Sinarsdottir

Aida Saracini

Marina Krunic from AMFI made a fur jacket that looked impossibly thin… almost like a shirt. // Ireneo Ciammello really pounded in the paper bag waist with her denim material trews…

 
Twan Meijerink's collection wasn't unisex but had one singular female silhouette at the end.  Elastic/plastic cage harnesses, heart cut-outs, sheer jackets and metal detailing… a lot of unconventional material usage here…

Loved Bregje Cox's combination of camel neatly cut coat and jangling metalware on top of it…

Manon Boertien's prints need the sun drenched photography here… surprisingly not too many digital print collections going on. 

This unisex collection by Liesbeth van Gemeren was presented as a menswear collection.  Though she advocated the unsiex nature well when she trooped out at the end with her model.