Stalked: Hellen van Rees, Emerging Fashion Designer.

29 April 2015

Hellen van Rees is an emerging Dutch fashion designer, who graduated from the prestigious Central Saint Martins in 2012. Her designs play on textures and form, working with handmade tweeds inspired by the iconic Chanel tweed.

I caught up with her to talk about her latest collection and what she loves about designing...

How did you get into design and what do you love about your job?

As a child I was often drawing/making all sorts of things and in general fascinated by material. As I got older I started drawing more humans and got into fashion because of the diversity of it. It’s very creative, get to work with materials, both 2d and 3d and it’s quite technical as well which I like. I love creating something completely from scratch. So the process of creating a colour palette by grouping my knitting yarns in different ways, until I’m happy. Then starting to work on textures and contrast to create a complete textiles story for the collection (usually influenced by works of art or something else I came across and photographed) While working on the textiles I usually get ideas for garments which I research further by collecting imagery of certain time periods, or architecture. Then gradually building the collection until it is finished that’s the nice part. The production, management, pricing, pr, administration, etc, etc, is also fine, but I don’t love doing that

What inspired your latest collection?

I liked the yarn-talles technique I used in the SS15 collection, so I decided to expand on that with AW15. That was the start, I later thought of disrupting the yarns with straight lines and 90degrees angles.
The collection is loosely inspired by the iconic landscape photographer Ansel Adams. This input is visible through the raw organic effect within usage of yarns upon layers of wool or silk. The natural fabrics have a soft texture that is opposed by sharp and slightly glossy black silicone that refers to the work of Russian constructivist painter Malevic.

If you could live in another city where would it be and why?

If I could take my current situation into another city I would like to live in Ghent, it’s a beautiful city with a medieval city centre, nice canals, small boutiques, and it’s also very lively because there are a lot of students there.