Maarten van der Horst

Vertalen:

I don’t consider myself to be a conceptual designer. I sketch a lot, and think and talk a lot about it. For me, fashion is the best way to express myself creatively. The sketching process comes from my heart rather than my head. As time goes by, I let them work together though. A lot of my choices are purely and exclusively intuïtive. For me, the added value or luxury is not just in the couture fabrics like mikado silks or triple organzas but especially in the expressive nature of the shapes, forms and the use of colour. Everything is hand-dyed.

My mother is Indonesian, so I grew up in a very colourful, but also kind of dark environment. Both my grandmother and my mother were exotists. She always took me on trips around the world and my grandmother’s house was a cave filled with treasures. I still recognise that in my own work. The art of escaping, collecting and flaunting.

From the start of this collection I was working with double-faced, firm fabrics and was designing towards a more “sculptural” and monumental collection. But combining it with cool, sexier items like a silk pair of hotpants, or loose-fitting boyfriend’s shirts, I present my own view on “sartorial” dressing. This way I don’t just design clothes, but complete looks and with that, hoping to inspire women to dress up. And have a lot of fun doing so.