G+N - Gerrit Uittenbogaard and Natasja Martens

Gerrit Uittenbogaard and Natasja Martens choose a rather alternative proposition when they set out as design team G+N back in 1998. Gerrit and Natasja are designers operating in the realm of fashion, but they are not exactly fashion designers. They hold nothing against fashion, but choose an unorthodox way to create it, and their products – most, but not necessarily all are made for the purpose of wearing -, transcend trends or other seasonal limitations. Purposely ignoring everything they know each time they start out on a new design project, the result is always inquisitive, experimental and innovative.

G+N created masks out of kitchenware, translated Yoshimoto Nara’s unsettling little characters into clothes, made bracelets out of pin cushions, paintings out of thousands of hand painted pins and recently they created these totally for real jeans that lack any of the usual prominent features such as stitching and studding; Gluejeans are constructed using glue only. Obviously, although nothing seems obvious at G+N, their presentations rarely involve a catwalk. They prefer the internet as their window to the world, and their work is mostly seen in galleries and museums. A full decade down this road, the odd couple of Dutch fashion or ‘fashion fugitives’ as they subtitled themselves, established quite an international reputation as… fashion darlings.

Academy of Dutch Fashion Design

To gain an indirect, objective and independent vote the Dutch Fashion Foundation has invited a select group of national decision makers and key-players with a cultural and economical background into the Academy of Dutch Fashion Design. The members of the Academy have all individually listed their top ten of most promising Dutch fashion designers, with a result of 28 designers. Looking at the ranking in which they were chosen and the criteria set up for this award, a selection was formed of 10 designers.

Members of the Academy of Dutch Fashion Design: Amsterdam International Fashion Week - Arnhem Fashion Biënnale - Dutch Fashion Foundation - Fonds voor Beeldende Kunst Vormgeving en Bouwkunst - HTNK - Intres – Klavers van Engelen - Modefabriek - MODINT – Monique van Heist - Prins Bernard Foundation - World Fashion Centre

International pre-jury From an international point of view the precommittee members of the jury Marc Gysemans (Gysemans Clothing Industry, Belgium), Valentina Maggi (headhunter luxury brands; director of Design Practice at Floriane de Saint-Pierre & Associés, Paris), and Diane Pernet (talentscout and journalist A Shaded View on Fashion, Paris) then choose the 5 finalists for the Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Awards 2009. These designers will be presented to the full international jury on November 6th.

Regulations

Each fashion designer to participate in the Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Awards is selected by the criteria that he/she: 

- is graduated from an (inter)national fashion academy, 
- has the Dutch nationality, 
- has its own registered enterprise, 
- has developed at least five collections under his/her own label, 
- has distinguished talent, a unique style and knows
to present this convincingly, 
- has already taken strategic steps to imbed in the international fashion field.