Day 1.

First of all, Amsterdam does not seem to want to get up early because when I was walking to work at about 9:45am, almost no one was on the streets, which was really strange to me. A first day is always unpredictable. I didn't know whether I would be working with anyone, would I just be getting coffee, what the heck would I be doing? Edwin's space is divided in 3 parts. The part behind the window is the studio where he keeps his clothes and the display, the downstairs is below ground and serves as his atelier and the 2nd story is where he lives. The beds that were used by prostitutes were not allowed to be removed so they have been built over.

When I first got there, Edwin explained to me his idea for his new collection. I obviously can't write about the details but it will basically be the story of a man named Joop who had a most fascinating life story. Edwin Oudshoorn, the designer I'm interning with, came to know of Joop through friends who wanted to make a documentary on his life. Joop ended up dying of old age last year and Edwin decided to do something with his story. He decided to do a collection that tells the story of Joop's life and the documentary will be filmed over the next few months. They will be conducting interviews of the people that knew Joop and they will be filming the process from beginning to end of Edwin's collection. The collection will show in Paris in a presentation the first week of July and in Amsterdam Fashion Week the third week of July. The film will be shown at Amsterdam Fashion week and on a Dutch tv channel. At least, that is the plan. With a little luck I can obscurely be working somewhere in the background in the documentary. That would be (this is for you Bart) legendary!

After finding out about Edwin's projects and collection, we had a meeting with a lady from a shoe company that makes handmade leather shoes. They are in the style of Tango shoes but they look very classy, which is why Edwin wants them to make shoes for him. She was very nice but could not take the hint after 2 hours that it was time for her to go. She kept talking about her kids and even brought her daughter's fashion coloring book for him to sign! In the first meeting! During the meeting I had to bring a dress (the one from "Soldaat van Oranje de Musical" pictures below) to the stylist of Carice Van Houten, the Dutch actress in Blackbook, Repo Men, and Valkery for the premiere of this movie. However, the stylist called back later in the day to inform Edwin that Carice wanted a less attention-grabbing dress since it was not her premiere. Their loss. The dress was beautiful.

Carice Van Houten

Then Edwin made us tostis and after lunch we started on a wedding dress he has to finish by Saturday. He is using a devore technique to burn out a fabric so I got to paint the fabric with a chemical. He let me do pretty much the same things he did and I didn't once get coffee. He got it himself. The bride got the idea that she wants the devore technique in her wedding dress when she was at the atelier and saw the dress below. The silhouette and design of the dress will be that of a dress Edwin made for "Soldaat van Oranje de Musical" also pictured below, just not very well. It's the dress on the right. Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool I get to also work on it and although I did it wrong a couple of times, I'll learn :-) Nick, Edwin's boyfriend came by at the end of the day so I got to meet him. He's English but he speaks Dutch, which I thought was pretty impressive (ahem, George). All in all, successful day.