Marga Weimans loves Bombastic Baroque and plans to wow Paris in 2008
Marga Weimans (1970) is the new promise in Couture, the only Dutch designer ever to finished the 4th Master Year of the prestigious Royal Antwerp Art Academy, award winner and soon the must-see in Paris!
‘I had almost finished my grade in Public Administration and was writing my thesis when a feeling of discomfort came over me. Is this the thing I want to do for the rest of my life? I decided to pursue my lifelong dream and to take a course in fashion drawing. Thanks to a few skilled family members I had some of these sketches transformed into real garments.’ Weimans received positive feedback from her teachers and decided she wanted to attend the Royal Antwerp Art Academy. ‘For me this was the only option, the Antwerp academy offers one of the best educations in fashion and at that moment it was the highest attainable level for me’.
She was initially turned down by academy but Weimans decided to do a year long preparatory course after which she was enrolled to the heavy study courses. ‘It was a tough time, you need to stay focused and stay healthy: you need to work and concentrate. When I compare it to Dutch courses I’d say the workload is about twice as heavy.’
It was during the second year of the Antwerp Academy she rediscovered her Surinam roots while designing the mandatory ethnical costume for the exams. ‘I learned to appreciate the bombastic, colorful way to dress up in Surinam culture reinforced by its hot climate… I search for a new complex image of black identity in my work.’. Until this very day Weimans’ looks portray a mixture of ‘Surinam meets European culture’, her silhouettes are bold, colorful and outgoing yet stylish and dressed-up.
After her appraised graduation collection Weimans was awarded the i-D Styling Award at the International Talent Support Competition (ITS#), the price? 3000 pounds, a two month work experience at the i-D offices in London to prepare a fashion shoot of her own work for the magazine. ‘I expected a warm welcome but all prejudices about magazine culture were true, it felt a bit like ‘The Devil Wears Prada’. I was a Antwerp graduate but I wasn’t taught how to pull of a big fashion shoot in a strange city… I needed to get the right information concerning deadlines and procedures and so on. Since not many of the stylists were very willing to help me I made friends at the office staff and interns who actually had all the contacts I needed to do it... i-D’s amazing creative director Terry Jones inspired and helped me too.’
‘My work is a diary of my life, that’s why I like art that’s personal such as the works of Tracey Emin and Frida Kahlo. Icons in the fashion industry are for example Comme des Garcons, Prada and the rich couture history of houses like Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Cristobal Balenciaga and Madeleine Vionnet. All these icons feel like a group of ‘friends’, I feel a sense of fellowship with them. Viktor & Rolf are great examples too since they seem to be very concentrated and focused on their work.’
Weiman’s talent hasn’t stayed unnoticed by other bold creatives such as her teacher Walter Van Beirendonck and fellow countryman Rem Hoolhaas who she met at the European Fashion Summit. ‘Mr. Koolhaas is like a patron to me, he shows great interest in my work.’ It’s no wonder architecture will play an important role in her latest work ‘My upcoming collection will play with excessive beauty trimmed off with the design discipline of architecture’. ‘Dutch artists are usually conceptually strong, they work from existing, simple forms, but contrasted with something very Baroque: a game of form versus functionality. The Dutch culture of the Golden Century inspires me: the juxtaposition between baroque and Calvinism, the gold, the porcelain, the tulips, it’s funny not that many Dutch artists use this period while it’s very well-known abroad.’
In 10 years time the young designer hopes to have built a strong fashion house with biannual shows on the Parisian runways.
‘I want to create clothes for intelligent people with a passion for beautiful design: I want to elevate them using ultimate beauty.’
Marga Weimans’ new blog will cover the making of her 2008 collection ‘Showing one’s personal battle during the making of a collection is a taboo in the fashion industry with its perfection and myths, my blog will show that personal battle’
www.margaweimans.com
See Marga Weimans' work at
Groninger Museum: Recent acquisitions/Permanent collection
19 May 2007 - 23 March 2008
A selection of recent acquisitions of modern and contemporary art, fashion and design. On show will be work by Hussein Chalayan, Maarten Baas, Marga Weimans, the Swedish design collective Front, Ettore Sottsass, Boris van Berkum, Marc Quinn, Anuschka Blommers & Niels Schumm and Lidy Jacobs, among others. Recent collages by Lidy Jacobs will be exhibited, as well as an installation acquired by the museum. www.groningermuseum.nl
Text by Joost van Gorsel at Iconique