Work in progress: AW16

Every month we give you an update and a little more insight on what’s going on inside the Hellen van Rees atelier.

This month, we are working on the new AW16 collection! It’s exciting to start a whole new collection again. It’s the 8^th collection already! Hellen has a big pinboard where she attaches all the designs, fabrics, materials and images, which inspired her for this new collection.

All the fabrics and designs are hand made in our atelier. trying new techniques, knitting samples, coating some fabrics with new effects and sewing it into the final pieces! It takes lots of hours but it is totally worth it when we see the items that are already finished; they’re so unique and the color combinations come out perfectly!

Hellen has written a small concept description of the collection:

The collection has started as a research into ‘ugly’ colour combinations that through careful consideration and combination start making sense. Hellen used for a starting point paintings but William Turner and Caspar David Friedrich. It had led to a Chanel-inspired tweed version of mixed browns and green-ish colours, a touch of crimson and bright contrasting yellow and blue stripes.

Furthering the usual search for contrasts a coating was developed that has a creased surface and can be applied both on stretch and non-stretchy fabrics. The idea of creases, mistakes and ugly stayed an leading theme for the collection adding a geometric shaped coating on a creased fabric so the openings of the creases are not covered s another version of a carefully considered ‘mistake’ that makes the garment more interesting in shape and surface.

We continue working with the production of the new collection and also looking forward to the holidays to spend time with our family and friends!

We are also moving to another workspace/atelier soon, so it’s a busy time for Hellen and the team!