Dutch fashion designer Bas Kosters talks about his uniqueness, aims, fascinations and of course: the new collection!
By: Elfie Tromp
What makes your work unique?
What I design is a reflection of my own unique personality, in all its facets. As is any work of art. No one could have produced what I have made, nor could I have produced the work of others. Although not everything in my collections is progressive or renewing in it being a new design or fit for a certain accessory or clothing article, everything I make is unique.
I am both, an illustrator and artist. Through my clothing, I want to tell a story.
Do you call your work haute couture?
Sometimes. For example, my sweatshirt collection is not tailored to the buyer, so you couldn’t call them haute couture.
My sample collection, however is unique, and contains only one or two pieces of a design, and they are tailored. If I were only to depend on the latter, I wouldn’t have a lot of buyers’ appeal yet.
What if Bas Kosters was to design for H & M?
I wouldn’t mind at all. It would be quite nice to be accessible. As a teenager, I always wanted to make clothing that wasn’t so absurdly expensive, yet still have its special appeal.
To be able to offer an affordable collection would be nice, but to produce in small editions, costs a lot. The down side of that is that my clothing at the moment is rather expensive for teenagers, which is a shame.
I would love to make certain exclusive collections, and next to that, have more commercial items to sell. The idea of mass production does appeal to me. If I were to design and produce a Bas Kosters toothbrush with Bas Kosters toothpaste would make me wild with excitement. At the moment, I do not have the financial power yet to achieve this, but perhaps, in the future…
My all time favourite material is cotton. It’s great building material, you can do absolutely anything with it; dying, decaying, bolster it, print on it. And it keeps its value. It’s a beautiful fabric to recycle.
I recycle a lot, but not out of an idealistic, environmentally friendly point of view, although it is a nice advantage of the matter.
What draws me to recycling is the charm of giving something a second life. Something, which is second-hand, always carries a story with it. The story is made up by maybe an emotional attachment of the former wearer, or just the altering of the fabric in time. It makes it personal and more importantly, inimitable.
I do use synthetic materials from time to time. But always to achieve a certain goal: like metallic colours, or if I want to give an article a tight fit, I like using Lycra.
Versace has the aim to make women look attractive, like striving to make the perfect sexy dress. You put big orange foam rubber heads on your models. Why?
The heads of my older collection were a way of making the idea of living dolls more alike. It is a funny thing that dolls are shaped to the image of humanity. I found it interesting to play with this, and turn it around: making the humans look like dolls. It was the idea to transgress them to another reality like this.
Of course humour had to do with it. Comedy is a fun way to bring a message across and place criticism without it being authoritive. I really don’t want to impose my opinion. It is, after all, only my opinion. I want people to be free to do whatever they want with it.
And besides that, the orange heads do have a certain appeal, it only depends on what you want to achieve being, sexy and all…
Where does your fascination for the grotesque originate?
A grand gesture makes your message all the clearer. I like clear communication.
To be truthful, the body is my last motive for making clothing. I am all about intentions and story telling.
You talk about your work as being a narrative means of bringing across a story or opinion. What piece of your upcoming new collection tells the ultimate message you want to get across?
Well, every collection has its own story lines and thoughts behind it, but for this collection I concentrated on the contrast of how on one side the ‘grey mass’ clothes itself, with identical coats, shoes and shirts, and on the other side there are the social outcasts, the bums, that even wear plastic bags as clothing.
The message of this collection is basically about how strange it is, to find others strange. I want to encourage people to first look at themselves, before they judge others. Everyone designs his or her life in a certain fashion. One way is not necessarily better than another.
I think in the new collection, the coat with attached gloves is an ideal crossover between these two extremes ways of clothing, grey mass versus bums, and a very strong criticism on the division between the two. It carries a blanket as a shawl, and is very warm and protective. It’s not only a perfect piece to stay warm in, but you could even lie down in it somewhere, and sleep in it. It is the ideal merge between practical clothing and outcast behaviour.
What is your own all time favourite piece?
My all time favourite of my own hand, is definitely the ‘bas bare penis shirt’.
From another designer I’d say the dresses Fong Leng made for Mathilde Willink. To me, they are probably the most precious and impressive dresses ever made.
I don’t believe in proclaiming things like that as a truth. Clothing behaviour is so individual and should be approached as such. There is no perfect black dress for every woman. I would like to recommend, however, nice warm cotton socks for everyone.
Of modern day designers, who do you find exciting?
From the top of my head, I’d say Marjan Pejoski and Bernhard Wilhelm. Especially the latter makes very cool, wearable clothing for young people.
You are known to be of the rebellious kind, yet you have attended three fashion institutes. Why?
Firstly, I went to the MBO for fashion and clothing, in Amsterdam, then I went to the art academy in Enschede, and the last school was the fashion institute in Arnhem.
I find it important to study and learn in a directed manner. My school times were very conducive to develop my own graphic and personal signature. At the art academy I was free to investigate what I could and wanted to do, and the fashion institute raised my awareness of my work, and how to situate it in a social point of view.
In 2003 you won the Robijn fashion award, a prestigious Dutch prize for young designers.
How did it affect you?
It was the final insurance a lot of people needed, to ask me to participate in their projects. Next to that, it gave me quite some publicity. Which isn’t always positive, however, because it costs a lot of time, and distracts from the work. People always think self-promotion is oh so important, but it has a downside as well.