De Borduurschool: Desiree Hammen

“Sorry, my studio has exploded a little.” Desirée Hammen smiles. Her studio in Eindhoven’s Strijp-S neighbourhood is full of boxes, crates and trays, filled with materials Desirée has collected from the city streets: trampled glitter garlands, pieces of tin cans, twigs. On the table are moulds for beads made of bio-plastic that Desirée develops herself, and there are pots of small dried beans in all kinds of colours, grown in her own garden. Desirée takes a lemon yellow bean from a jar and holds it up, her face beaming. “Stunning, isn’t it?”

All of these materials are used in Desirée’s embroidery. She creates dreamlike compositions, either abstract or involving images of plants, flowers and texts. She does so with great technical skill: Desirée was trained in the Parisian haute couture embroidery atelier Lesage, which has been supplying embroidery to fashion houses like Chanel for decades. At first glance, the world of haute couture seems difficult to reconcile with street scavenging and bean planting, but in Desirée’s work, it all comes together.

When did you start embroidering?

“I learned it as a child in elementary school, I think I was about six years old. I remember some of my first projects: a craft bag on which I embroidered two ducks, and one with a crocus pattern. I had probably found those patterns in a book owned by my mother, which was called ‘House, Garden and Kitchen Ideas’. I took the patterns to school to embroider. It was pretty challenging, but I did it anyway.”

“I also liked making doll clothes, together with my godmother. She did everything on the sewing machine, but I wanted to be able to do the sewing by hand. I did it very neatly, just like the machine. I was thrilled to discover that I could just make something myself, from scratch. I can still feel how good that felt.”

You studied fashion design at ArtEZ, in Arnhem. Did you do a lot of embroidery there?

“Not really, actually. The interest was certainly still there: I took gold embroidery classes with Margreet Beemsterboer outside school hours, and when we made a joint collection as a class in the third year I was appointed head of embroidery. But I wasn’t yet thinking of turning embroidery into my profession. Nor was there much embroidery in my graduation collection. I wanted to, but I spent too much time drawing patterns. I found that very difficult, so that’s where all my attention went.”

You graduated in 2003. What did you do after your graduation?

“All kinds of things. Working in the fashion industry did not really happen, I didn’t match with most commercial companies. Because of my vision on handwork, however, and my experience in it, I did get asked to become part of the hybrid fashion collective Paintedseries. I also worked for Dutch fashion label The People of the Labyrinths and as an assistant to American fashion designer and artist Susan Cianciolo. She has a very broad conception of material. Anything can be material to her: tablecloths, towels, fake flowers. It opened my eyes at the time.”

“I also made autonomous work, combining embroidery and performance. That work was often about the fashion system, about how things are made and valued. Some garments are extremely expensive while others are super cheap, even though human labour was involved in the production of both. Why does it work this way?”

“I want to express appreciation for all the things that exist and the energy that went into creating them. The materials I pick up off the street were all made by someone, and carelessly discarded after use. That annoys me enormously, but at the same time, it’s a source of inspiration and of materials.”

“I started collecting materials on the street when I was studying in Arnhem. I walked a lot through nature in and around the city, and I saw little things and bits lying around everywhere. I started picking them up and using them for my work, and in time, began to apply couture techniques. As is done in couture embroidery, I build up embroidery in multiple layers, and I use sequins and beads. Working this way makes a piece of found plastic look very different.”

Desirée picks up one of her own works. “Look at this, at the dull sheen of this plastic… It’s actually quite lovely.”

You also embroider a lot with natural materials: twigs, leaves….

“I have always loved nature. I used to work in my parents’ garden, I was a florist for a short time, and I was the director of a community garden here in Eindhoven, GardenMania. Now I have my own vegetable garden. From the plants and herbs that grow there, I make pigments for dyeing fabric, and I embroider with the beans I harvest.”

That sounds like a very different world compared to haute couture embroidery. How did you end up in the sphere of couture? 

“I had heard about Lesage before, it seemed like an interesting place. At one point I saw the documentary Signé Chanel, about the haute couture workshop of Chanel brand and the way the brand collaborates with specialists. One of the people featured in the documentary is Madame Pouzieux. She is the person who used to weave all the braiding used for the classic Chanel jackets. She did this by hand, from her own farm in France. In addition to being a craftsperson, she was also a farmer. In the documentary, someone from Chanel visits her to collect her braids. ‘Not right now,’ she tells him, ‘the hay has to be brought in, because it’s going to rain tomorrow afternoon.’ And off she is, into the countryside, going to bring in the hay.”

“I never knew it was actually possible: working in nature while at the same time making haute couture! Owning an attic full of braiding machines while also tending to a large piece of farmland! Once I knew that it could go this way, I wanted it too. Thanks to a grant, I was able to take an orientation course at Lesage in 2009, and then attended a full programme.”

What did you find at Lesage?

“I found recognition and kinship, and a great love for the craft of embroidery. I loved the repetitive movements, the careful construction of haute couture embroidery, the balancing of materials. I loved applying the most elaborate form of the stitches and techniques used, and I learned to master the craft to perfection. When I finished my training, I could embroider with my eyes closed.”

“It was also during that time that I realized: apparently embroidery is a profession that suits me. Until now, with my fashion jobs, I always felt the need to create my own work next to it. But if I could do embroidery as a job, I thought, then I don’t need anything else. Then it’s all good. Then I’m happy.”

What impact did training at Lesage have on your embroidery?

“After training at Lesage, I was proficient at haute couture embroidery. The next challenge was to do it without losing my individuality. I do that by freestyling, or putting my own energy and emotions into embroidery. For example, there’s an embroidery there that says ‘keep it cool’, which I made when I was angry. I embroidered it a little wildly. But I still included sequins and transparent beads, by way of a haute couture element.”

You also develop materials yourself, from bioplastic. Why do you do that?

“I want to embroider without harming nature. Nature is a great inspiration for me, I want to respect and preserve her. Many standard embroidery materials, such as sequins, are made of plastic. I think plastic is a great material to work with, but I want to use as little virgin plastics as possible. They might end up in nature.”

“Some time ago I was asked by the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague to flesh out a new course on textile innovation. I chose to work with the students on making biomaterials, which are for example based on plant material. They are regenerative. I started experimenting with agar agar, derived from algae, for making beads, among other things. I received a grant from the Dutch Stimuleringsfonds to do further research on the application of biomaterials in embroidery.”

“I hope that eventually all embroidery materials, from sequins and beads to paint, can be made from biomaterials, and in any kind of shape we want.”