philipp schueller
rens de waal
design studio schuellerdewaal
October 2017
interview by Isrid
'We enjoy being in our own bubble'
SchuellerDeWaal
“We both worked at numerous fashion companies before we met eachother at Hugo Boss located in Stuttgart. We were both employed as a designer, working at the same drawing table and we often commuted into work together. The desire to work independently grew day by day and eventually we resigned at Hugo Boss on the same day and we returned to Holland. We joined forces and our talents grew quite naturally into a design studio. This way we started out small, growing our label in a healthy manner. Just recently we presented our eighth collection. The stores who have bought our stock are reporting excellent sales. More and more foreign buyers are showing interest as well.”
Working at the WFC
"We started out at The Floor, which is the creative hub of the WFC, back in 2014. We enjoy being here, it feels nice being away from the city and we enjoy being in our own bubble. The synergy and the exchange of information among other designers is very useful. At the moment we occupy two spaces, used as office, studio and showroom. The view up here is magnificent. We also love the functionality and connectivity at the WFC. As a tenant we have around the clock access to the building and we even have our own postal services right here. It just works!”
“We both worked at numerous fashion companies before we met eachother at Hugo Boss located in Stuttgart. We were both employed as a designer, working at the same drawing table and we often commuted into work together. The desire to work independently grew day by day and eventually we resigned at Hugo Boss on the same day and we returned to Holland. We joined forces and our talents grew quite naturally into a design studio. This way we started out small, growing our label in a healthy manner. Just recently we presented our eighth collection. The stores who have bought our stock are reporting excellent sales. More and more foreign buyers are showing interest as well.”
Working at the WFC
"We started out at The Floor, which is the creative hub of the WFC, back in 2014. We enjoy being here, it feels nice being away from the city and we enjoy being in our own bubble. The synergy and the exchange of information among other designers is very useful. At the moment we occupy two spaces, used as office, studio and showroom. The view up here is magnificent. We also love the functionality and connectivity at the WFC. As a tenant we have around the clock access to the building and we even have our own postal services right here. It just works!”
'The elevators were transformed into rockets, including smoke and light effects.'
Showtime
“Our vision for our latest show, the spring-summer collection 2018, was to have our audience experience a ‘homey get together’ feeling. The WFC team took great care of us, guiding us through this process and showing us through the building to find the right location. We decided on the Atrium, located at the Fashion Garden building. The wild, very obvious space elevators, the balconies and the purple carpet were the perfect setting to present this collection."
You had a lot of people attend your show and the press was full of praise.
“I think we sensed it was time to play a bit with the luxury fashion houses by mocking their pompous and over the top fashion shows. Our location at the Fashion Garden was perfect to achieve this goal. Fashion shows in general have a huge budget, spending a fortune on models, special effects and decor. We wanted to show the opposite. This is why our collection, existing out of fifteen looks, was spread out over sixty outfits. As a small label we have no budget to dress this many models. However, we did manage to achieve this by using sample sizes and ‘dead stock’ from other companies working at the WFC. We even used clothing owned by the people working here and existing window dressings. The elevators were transformed into rockets, including smoke and light effects. The entire show represented the theme of our collection: ‘Serious fashion… not so serious’.”
“Our vision for our latest show, the spring-summer collection 2018, was to have our audience experience a ‘homey get together’ feeling. The WFC team took great care of us, guiding us through this process and showing us through the building to find the right location. We decided on the Atrium, located at the Fashion Garden building. The wild, very obvious space elevators, the balconies and the purple carpet were the perfect setting to present this collection."
You had a lot of people attend your show and the press was full of praise.
“I think we sensed it was time to play a bit with the luxury fashion houses by mocking their pompous and over the top fashion shows. Our location at the Fashion Garden was perfect to achieve this goal. Fashion shows in general have a huge budget, spending a fortune on models, special effects and decor. We wanted to show the opposite. This is why our collection, existing out of fifteen looks, was spread out over sixty outfits. As a small label we have no budget to dress this many models. However, we did manage to achieve this by using sample sizes and ‘dead stock’ from other companies working at the WFC. We even used clothing owned by the people working here and existing window dressings. The elevators were transformed into rockets, including smoke and light effects. The entire show represented the theme of our collection: ‘Serious fashion… not so serious’.”
Fashion
“We feel the need to reflect on the current state fashion is in and to focus on image. We get a high from purely designing clothes and fabricating garments, the craftmanship and what it looks like from the inside out. Idealism and passion is deeply rooted within us. For that reason we created our own design studio and label, to be able to turn our frustration into seeking opportunities and positivity. We are by no means pessimistic and we are convinced that fashion will be just fine. A lot of questions remain and a lot of things don’t work out quite right just yet but the tendency to find solutions is there. We find the focus increasingly on the value of clothing and that in turn means a lot to the innovation of aesthetics.”
“We feel the need to reflect on the current state fashion is in and to focus on image. We get a high from purely designing clothes and fabricating garments, the craftmanship and what it looks like from the inside out. Idealism and passion is deeply rooted within us. For that reason we created our own design studio and label, to be able to turn our frustration into seeking opportunities and positivity. We are by no means pessimistic and we are convinced that fashion will be just fine. A lot of questions remain and a lot of things don’t work out quite right just yet but the tendency to find solutions is there. We find the focus increasingly on the value of clothing and that in turn means a lot to the innovation of aesthetics.”
Published in the WFC 50 year anniversary book