Gerrit Rietveld Academy presents its fashion design graduates 2024

The fashion design graduates of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy of Art and Design, one of Amsterdam’s primary art schools, have presented their final collections in the academy’s annual fashion show. This year, the show featured the graduation projects of twelve students, with preliminary work presented by first and second-year students.

The fashion show built on a curriculum focused on exploring the functionality of fashion and clothing through an experimental approach to subjects, materials, and presentation forms.

This edition featured live sound, with each student using a microphone to add a sound dimension to their works. Inspired by early fashion shows from the 1950s, a moderator provided live commentary on fabric, length, and details, while the audience could hear models breathe, hum, scream, speak, or sing.

Under the guidance of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy teaching staff, the works displayed a range of personal interests, techniques, forms, and materials, converging in a play with identity, parallel universes, and the zone between fiction, dreams, memory, reality, and lies. Clothing served as an extension of the body, emphasising movements, and explored cultural rituals and 'clothing defects' that stretched norms of visibility.

The show is integrated into the curriculum, with students developing their own performative dimension of the work. Guided by educators Uta Eisenreich and Elisa van Joolen, and collaborating with creators from various disciplines, each student developed the layers of their work through experiments with voice, sound, space, movement, light, and shadows.

Commenting on the show in a release, Elisa van Joolen said: “Besides the voice of the designer, the microphone in the show also gives a voice to the models, and spectators are also named. Everyone has a role. Fashion is a collective process, not just the result of an individual genius."

She continued: “It involves various human, material, and cultural processes. I hope to explore new forms of fashion that are more social and diverse, revaluing clothing as an important cultural value rather than just a commercial one.”

A video recording of the Rietveld Academie Fashion Show is part of the graduation show and will be on display at the academy from July 3 to 7.

This year's show was made possible by Keep an Eye Foundation, Meester Koetsier Foundation, Van Stigt-ing foundation, and Stadsherstel.

This article was written with the help of an AI tool and then translated and edited into English by Veerle Versteeg.