Arnhem Mode Biënnale

Fashion design / Exhibitions / Events

The star-studded line-up of the Arnhem Mode Biënnale starting in June, has just been announced featuring Dutch and international designers with a focus on the theme SHAPE and a royal opening.

By Editor Design.nl /asdf 09-04-2009

The Arnhem Mode Biënnale presents the state of the art in international fashion design every two years. This third edition runs from 6 June to 6 July 2009. A high-profile main exhibition, satellite presentations, a symposium, performances, workshops, lectures, catwalk shows and a magazine afford a diversity of insights into this year's theme SHAPE.

Led by Piet Paris who is back as the biennale’s Artistic Director for the third time, the main exhibition is being presented in a series of nine interconnected pavilions set at a height of five metres that links Arnhem City Hall with a late Gothic church. The exhibition will focus on the three tendencies in the fashion designer’s working process: the traditional method, the intangible method and the conceptual method. Some 150 items of clothing illustrate what the overarching SHAPE theme represents and why ‘form’ is such a hot topic in fashion. These fashion designers demonstrate that there is more than one way to arrive at exceptional forms.

No fewer than 80 fashion designers from the Netherlands and abroad will be contributing to the SHAPE exhibition. International designers include Lanvin, Jil Sander, Calvin Klein, Maison Martin Margiela, Bernhard Willhelm, Christopher Kane, Rodarte, Thom Browne and Hussein Chalayan. Dutch designers include Viktor & Rolf, …And Beyond, Antoine Peters, G + N, Iris van Herpen, Klavers van Engelen, Marcha Hüskes, Mattijs, Monique van Heist, Spijkers en Spijkers.

The SHAPE theme is also the guiding principle for other programme components including instructive workshops for students, a shopping route for fashion devotees and lectures for the professional audience. Various catwalk shows in the Eusebius Church are being staged during the biennale.

Other highlights of the satellite events include the Symposium: Re-Shaping Attitudes about changing attitudes in the fashion industry about sustainability, transience, quality and social responsibility, ArtEZ Graduation Show for fashion and various networking events with designers including Kiki van Eijk, Saskia van Drimmelen, Arnout Visser and HTNK fashion consultancy and Arnhem Coming Soon.

Her Royal Highness Princess Máxima will be officially opening the Arnhem Mode Biënnale on 5 June 2009.

For more information please visit the website of the biennale.

Main image: Lanvin SS09 by Freudenthal&Verhagen
Image: Maison Martin Margiela SS09 by Freudenthal&Verhagen
Images: Sketches of the locations by Piet Paris