Indigo: meet the maker-designers

Liselore Frowijn

As a fashion designer, Liselore Frowijn constantly feels the drive to capture the energy she gains from art, music, people, and other cultures that surround her, channeling it into her work. Fashion is the perfect medium to translate all of this. Every new design is like a living painting, carefully constructed like a collage, where she is always searching for the perfect balance between aesthetics and imperfection. Frowijn’s collections are like mood boards: explosions of eclecticism and color. However, the collection of clippings holds another, perhaps less immediately noticeable, common thread: for Frowijn, every image fragment is a print. Prints, and the material that carries them, form the starting point for each garment. They play freely in Frowijn’s voluminous tunics, parkas, and dresses.

In Kyushu, Liselore is putting the finishing touches on her new summer 2017 collection, which will be shown in Paris and at the Indigo: Sharing Blue exhibition during Dutch Design Week. In this collection, the fashion designer applies various indigo techniques.

www.liselorefrowijn.com

Maaike Gottschal

Maaike Gottschal, designer, producer, and teacher, is the owner of Textielfabrique. She teaches at art academies and organizes masterclasses at her studio in Rotterdam. Additionally, she has a small but growing collection of sustainable high-quality fabrics and yarns for designers and textile enthusiasts. Her approach is that making clothing and textiles takes time—it’s an investment, not only to save money but to create something unique. High-quality fabric and knowledge of techniques to add a personal touch ensure the value of your investment in the long term. Gottschal has deeply studied Japanese handicraft techniques.

In Kyushu, she is expanding this knowledge and experimenting by combining various indigo-related techniques such as Shibori patterning, Sashiko embroidery, and weaving techniques like Sakiori, Kasuri, and Saori. Her focus is on expanding the indigo palette (a combination of indigo with other dyes) and exploring the creation of stripes in the material. The stripes are created through actions like folding, clamping, binding, and weaving.

www.textielfabrique.nl

Aliki van der Kruijs

Aliki van der Kruijs works with a conceptual approach across various fields of art and design. For each commission or independent project, Aliki explores which material best serves as a medium to highlight the relationships between humans, nature, and space. Her working method involves carefully planned productions that leave room for uncontrolled ‘natural’ elements. The question “How to wear the weather” led to the project Made by Rain, for which she developed a technique that allows rain to be printed on textiles.

Her project for Indigo: Sharing Blue begins with research into the everyday object of rope. Rope holds many uses and meanings in Japanese culture. For instance, ropes are used in Shinto shrines to mark sacred spaces, and wrapping objects with rope is considered a Japanese art form. Without ropes, VOC ships would not have been able to sail to Japan. Drawing from kasuri weaving, which the maker-designers study in Kyushu, Aliki incorporates elements to develop new materials that bridge the past, present, and future.

www.alikivanderkruijs.com

Adrianus Kundert

Adrianus Kundert is a Dutch designer who combines his conceptual skills with a keen sense of form and color. His work often results from material research and is created in collaboration with industry professionals. A good example is his project Ripening Rugs, where he makes a statement about the sustainability of the product while also exploring the possibilities of transformative yarns and how to apply these skills. Adrianus is fascinated by movement and is constantly seeking new approaches to incorporate it into his projects. He believes that objects that evolve can enhance durability and improve the relationship with the user.

For Indigo: Sharing Blue, he is researching indigo as a transformative textile, applying the qualities of indigo dye to create fabrics that change color with use. For example, fabrics shift from yellow to blue, and new colors and textures emerge with wear and tear.

www.adrianuskundert.com

Read more

Indigo: Sharing Blue

Four maker-designers traveled to Kyushu, Japan, to explore the shared heritage of the Netherlands and Japan in the field of indigo dye during a crafts exchange.

Indigo: Sharing Blue publication

Context, background information on shared heritage, work process, and results of the makers and masters in Japan.

Indigo Sharing Blue - Dutch Design Week 2016

The results of Indigo Sharing Blue were presented during Dutch Design Week from October 22 to 30, 2016, at the Kazerne in Eindhoven.