''Monique van Heist's project:Hello Fashion is a new form of Fashion Activism. A fashion statement subverting the fashions system's vectors of power, but using its infrastructure for promoting multitudes, and transparancy of how fashion might be and what other means of expression and meanings it could manifest.''
On November 7th Dutch Designer Monique van Heist won the Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Award 2008. She will receive a reward of 25000 to further develop her label ''moniquevanheist'', and to set further steps in the international fashion industry....
On Friday November 7th 2008 the Dutch Fashion Foundation organized the second edition of the Mercedes Benz Dutch Fashion Awards. This initiative to create a focus moment in the Dutch fashion industry saw its successful debut in November 2007. On November 7th 2008 an international jury once again chose the Dutch fashion design label most likely to succeed in bringing its label onto the international market. The winner of the Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Award received a financial reward of 25.000 euro which will enable the label to take further steps in the international fashion industry. Last edition this award was won by the label Klavers van Engelen who used the reward to restart their label and are now among others exploring the Milanese market.
Monique van Heist also won the Media award,the Dutch Fashion Media Award is presented by leading Dutch fashion media and given to the designer that according to the Dutch Fashion Media Academy deserves an extra incentive on national soil through shown excellence in the past year. This award is made possible by Club Brillant, a collaboration of fashion conscious opticians, offering the Monique a possibility to collaborate with a renowned eyewear designer in the development of their own eyewear collection to complement her collections. She also won an incentive of 5.000 Euro to invest freely in the development of her brand....
And at last she won the Dutch Fashion Incubator Award, which is composed of substantial in-kind contributions from the industry to the realization of the ambitions of the winner of the Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Award 2008. This Award extends not only to the support of the label, but as well to illustrate the value these products and channels have for the realization of the designer’s business objectives. This year introduced the generous offer of three companies in the field of software and technology, sales and production: Department store the Bijenkorf will take a part of the winning collection up in its assortment to be sold in its flagship stores in Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam next year. Lectra offers the winner of the Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Awards 2008 a package of and training-course of the Modaris ExpertPro and Kaledo software. These solutions will enable the winner to streamline and accelerate his or her design process and communication with production facilities. The Fair Wear Foundation offers not only to the winner but to all the nominated designers a course to get acquainted with the fair wear principles and are being brought in contact with production facilities that comply with the criteria of Fair Wear.
(source Dutch Fashion Foundation)
As the above shows, this a very innovative and clever use of the Fashion-Industry's network, enabling Monique van Heist to introduce her newest project ''Hello Fashion'' which was launched at the Bijenkorf (a dutch version of Bloomingdale's) last may 2009.
With ''Hello Fashion'' Monique makes a fashion statement, while at the same time offering an alternative vision on how Fashion might be....: a permanent collection of garments presented in a loose-leaf catalogue, to which new items will be added randomly..(this is: not according to the traditional fashion-cycle).
'' Designers are creating more and more collections, and i am thinking: who's going to wear all those garments'' Monique van Heist expresses in an interview. This made her reflect upon her own role and responsibility as a Fashion Designer. Her Fashion is a research into the industry's vectors of power, and the driving forces of novelty and speed, in the end resulting in unnecessary waste. Fashion starts with an analysis of what people wear, and where they wear it. Monique turns this research to her benefit as a sourceof inspiration: every day life. From sociological fashion observations into highly wearable and desirable new forms of fashion design. Clothes that relate to us on a direct day-to-day level. She is literally getting in touch with society by means of her designs....
Monique designs unisex-style collections with an own character, which are referred to her''alter ego's",
like the underneath description of alter-ego Nastasja:
Natasja, Me.
when they leave, she fakes to be busy. or better, hide and pretend to be gone.
where they make blazers, at night IT is hers (mine).
puts on the dustcoat and:
begin.
take the freshly oiled machine. push the button, hear that beautiful snoring sound. choose material(S)
shape by head, color by heart. instinctive distinction.
the rules of fashion are no longer at night, but her rules.
create what is hers, with innocent beauty.
posing, showing off and, happiness.
she is the maker of her universe- she releases her stars!
I am then NATASJA. It fits me better.
I am ready to wear it. what it is.
she is a sewing factory.
she stands, still in fashion.
is her taste as fashion, is fashion tasty?
she knows.
All Monique's collections have a description of the character expressed by these collections.That said, the designs are such that they leave enough room to be personalized by the wearer. Monique explores the bounderies of uniformity within her designs, to just a level that the individual is triggered in developing/expressing its own unique persona, this in dialogue with ''the other'' expressed in the collection.
It's about the concept of dynamic interaction between people in creating identity. The'' I ''does not exist without the ''other'', within a balance we find ourselves....
( source Levinas, Sartre,Damasio and others Philosophy of Mind)
The above forms the (meta)physical and philosophical mindset out of which Hello Fashion was created. The garments that get into the Hello Fashion catalogue are called ''moniquevanheist classics''.
The catalogue can be downloaded from her website: www.moniquevanheist.com
Her other collections,and poetic descriptions of Alter-ego's can also be viewed on her website.
Monique van Heist has graduated from Arhnem Fashion Institute in November 2004, she launched her label ''moniquevanheist'' that same year with the launch of her first collection ''toni''. In May 2009 she launched her project Hello Fashion, and she is keen on developing this project/fashion concept worldwide....
working with the fashion-industry, instead of against it: this by subverting its power-vectors but using its infrastructure...and by offering a work-able, fashionable alternative of how fashion might/could be: HELLO FASHION!
Sources:
BOOKS
''Crafts: On Scale, Pace and Sustainability'', Li Edelkoort
''Awaking to the other'', Emmanuel Levinas
''Eco-chic the fashion paradox'' Sandy Black
''Seven days in the art-world'' Sarah Thortnon
''Fashion a Philsophy'' Lars Svendsen
Websites:
www.moniquevanheist.com
www.dutchfashionawards.com/
http://www.edelkoort.com/
http://www.premsela.org/home/-/en
http://www.arnhemmodebiennale2009.com/read/en
