After hours on end of travelling, we finally reached our destination and we have to admit: it was worth the endless trip. The quietness and beautiful scenery took our breaths away! It was the beginning of February and the weather changed dramatically, minus ten degrees and a snow white landscapes stretched up to the horizon. And just like Erik, founder of Wongema, promised us, this visit had already opened our eyes in a new and inspiring way. This two-day trip was a great start for coming five months in which we will be working on identities of brands and young designers.

After this adventure up North, the real deal started. In groups of four we were assigned to a ‘dead brand’ in order to come up with a recommendation to revitalise the brand. By dead brand we obviously don’t mean a dead designer, but a brand which, both to internal and external factors, ceased to exist. It was up to us to research these factors and to come up with a plan to revive the brand. The brands we worked on were Ozzie Clarke, Claude Montana, Christian Lacroix and Luella. The recommendations for these brands, which were all unique in their own way, were presented in a short pitch after five weeks of in-depth analysis. Next phase we’ll start working on the visual identities of young brands and designers. Will keep you posted!

Short Biography:
I’m Fanny, third year Fashion & Branding student at AMFI, currently participating in the specialisation programme Brands&Identity. I enjoy photography, writing, cooking and good wine.

A creative team building day in Weesp

The announcement was made two weeks ago, but congratulations to TIGER DRAGON SLAYERS from the Underworld! They were the chosen favourite by the judges, but also most of the audience who came to visit the magazine presentations were a fan of this winning magazine.

Going back a couple of weeks. Once the printing of the magazine was complete, we had to start brainstorming about a creative and unique way to present our magazine. Having sat for hours trying to come up with something extraordinary, we decided to keep it extremely simple. By picking out the most important yet random elements of our magazine; SQUARE magazine, we were able to come up with a concept that actually just gave everyone the possibility to eat a lot of strange food like jelly whilst playing a game which revealed some of their most intimate secrets.

Other groups had printed large versions of their magazine covers, which was a very effective and simple way of creating a stand; something we hadn’t actually thought about doing. But with a lack of financial support, we did manage to save a lot of money.

The atmosphere was buzzing during our presentation; drinks and snacks were floating around the room. A lot of models, photographers, teachers, students and friends roamed around and it was an extremely positive yet tiring experience!

But now it’s time to jump into the world of TIGER DRAGON SLAYERS! So we kicked off with a team building day in Weesp and now we have been re-energised! So let’s look for the bold, the risk-taking and the outstanding. We’re ready to pounce and to give you that burst of crazy fashionality you have been looking for. Don’t forget to follow us, we might pop up in unexpected places, so don’t let yourself be surprised.

Short biography:
May Carolien Putman Cramer, currently a third year Fashion & Branding student living in Amsterdam. I am actually half Dutch, half Kiwi but have lived across the globe and am waiting to jump on the plane to my next destination. I am addicted to change, writing and images. Take a sneak peek into how I experience the Magazine Programme at AMFI.

Previous blogs of May Carolien Putman Cramer:
Blog 3: competing with the clock
Blog 2: square mag fixates itself
Blog 1: Take one and two, three is up to you.

Kelsey pitching her design to the jury

On 18 and 19 April a group of AMFI students competed in the Student Award during the Safety & Fashion @Work fair. In a live atelier they each designed an outfit for the WarChild promo team whilst working together with coaches from five corporate fashion companies: De Berkel, Company Fits, Emergo Textile Projects, Kwintet Solutions and Schijvens Confectiefabriek.

At the end of the first day they all pitched their idea to a jury. On the second day, during the Corporate Fashion Award, the jury announced the winner: second year Fashion & Management student Kelsey Scheepers. She was part of team De Berkel with coaches Charlotte Raso and Damaris. Kelsey: ‘I was really surprised when my name was called by the jury. We only had one day to create and present our design so it was a lot of stress and I did not expect to win.’ At the moment Kelsey is still working on improving the design together with other AMFI students and in two weeks time they are going to WarChilds’ office to finalize everything. Later in the year the winning collection will be altruistically produced by the five corporate fashion  companies.

On Friday 29 June the graduation event AMFI Transit 2012 will take place in the World Fashion Centre in Amsterdam. AMFI Transit offers a platform for more than 125 graduates from the Design, Management and Branding departments. Besides the graduation celebration there is a public programme with a catwalk show and exhibition.

This year the Transit event celebrates 20 years of AMFI. Because of this celebration, the institute will organise a special programme for alumni and former staff members from AMFI, Mr. Koetsier and Charles Montaigne.

Ticket sale for the event will start by the end of May on amfi.nl/transit.

Trapped in a dreambox

The end of the first half of the Magazine Programme is nearing. I can feel the sweat drops forming on my forehead, and my muscle tensing in my shoulders. I can’t believe it. Time has flown by, and soon enough our baby will be handed in and the judges will make their decision.

But my oh my a lot of things have happened in the past three weeks. After our first photo shoot we decided we wanted to undertake a second one, resulting in four shoots in total in our magazine. There we went, setting ourselves the task to create a box which resembled a dollhouse, bought a whole collection of goodies to put in it; including a life size model (a friend of mine) who we also shoved into the box. Isabelle, from my group, was also very determined to sit in the box; evidence is below. So, how did we come up with this idea? I have no idea, and am not completely sure what made it so successful, but our very own Alice in Wonderland shoot was born.

Killing our darlings..

Now we are left making final decisions, sitting together for hours on end and trying not to drive each other nuts. But, so far so good! Here’s a couple of preview pictures collected from the past few weeks so you get a little insight into our working process. Curious to see what the next week will bring us!

Later that week we had an appointment with the printer (Sil), deciding on paper and binding was a long and hard decision. But Sil managed to give us enough ideas and tips, moving us in the direction we wanted to go. Those two hours were a definite test of ‘killing your darlings’.

Fluffy wonderland

Isabelle's heaven!

Short biography:
May Carolien Putman Cramer, currently a third year Fashion & Branding student living in Amsterdam. I am actually half Dutch, half Kiwi but have lived across the globe and am waiting to jump on the plane to my next destination. I am addicted to change, writing and images. Take a sneak peek into how I experience the Magazine Programme at AMFI.

Previous blogs of May Carolien Putman Cramer:
Blog 2: square mag fixates itself
Blog 1: Take one and two, three is up to you.

Philipp Schüller and Saskia Schijen are both former AMFI-students from Germany. They followed the International Fashion & Design programme and successfully graduated in 2007. Philipp and Saskia both just landed impressive new jobs so high time to catch up.

What did you do after graduation?
Philipp: ‘After I graduated I moved to Stockholm to work for H&M. A year later I joined the design team of ELLE as a Designer. In the summer of 2009 I went to the famous Royal College of Art in London and graduated from there two years later with an MA in Fashion Womenswear. My MA collection caught a lot of attention and gained me editorials in some of the most famous magazines in the world. It definitely was a great platform to expose my work to the world and an incredible experience. I loved it.’

Saskia: ‘After graduating I got a position at COS and moved to London. I worked there for two years, first as an Assistant Designer and later as a Designer. In 2009 I was admitted to the Royal College of Art and graduated just like Philipp, from their MA Womenswear course. Since then I have been working for Pringle of Scotland and Puma by Hussein Chalayan.’

What are you doing at the moment?
Philipp: I’m about to join Hugo Boss as a Designer in their Womenswear team. I will be working in a team of 3 designers mostly responsible for the casual line ‘Orange.’

Saskia: ‘I have just started a position at Stella McCartney. I’m assisting the Knit & Jersey Designer, the Denim Designer and draping for the show. We are now starting the new season so I’m doing a lot of research.’

What were the highlights for you at AMFI?
Philipp: ‘Definitely being one of the students of AMFI’s first Honours Programme for Fashion & Design. It felt incredible to get such great support to develop as a designer. It taught me that I was capable of making the right decisions and go for what sometimes may appear impossible to achieve. Furthermore I met a few of my closest friends, including Saskia, during my time at AMFI. The people you meet are important, and they will be in the future. Fashion is one big network.’

Saskia: ‘I was also part of the Honours programme and it really had a lot of impact on my work and myself – it was an amazing experience. Looking back I think AMFI as a whole was a great and a very good base for my second study and career. I was part of the first international class at AMFI and meeting so many different people definitely was very good and enriching.’

http://www.philippschueller.com/
http://saskiaschijen.com/

Painted white

Both the male and female model were painted white, allowing the colourful accessories to stand out more. Due to the gathered information from the previous afternoon with Kim Bakker, we knew that less would definitely be more in this case and we kept it as simple as possible. Experimenting with facial expressions and testing the accessories in different ways whilst keeping the background and the essence pure and crisp.

Entangle me, keep me warm

Have a look at the series of images we created, they remain unedited thus far but props to Barbara van Limburg Stirum, our photographer and of course our models; Youri and Irene. Have fun!

Short biography:
May Carolien Putman Cramer, currently a third year Fashion & Branding student living in Amsterdam. I am actually half Dutch, half Kiwi but have lived across the globe and am waiting to jump on the plane to my next destination. I am addicted to change, writing and images. Take a sneak peek into how I experience the Magazine Programme at AMFI.

Previous blog May Carolien Putman Cramer:
Blog 1: Take one and two, three is up to you.

Just

What is your background?
‘My name is Oscar Raaijmakers, 40 years old, born in Nijmegen. I studied Fashion Design in Arnhem and did my Master Degree there as well. I had my own label / studio together with Suleyman Demir under the name ‘OSCAR SULEYMAN’. We presented our collections during Paris Fashion Week. After this we worked as Senior Designers for OILILY Womenswear and were Head Designers for ELLE Pret-a-Porter. During this period I also worked as a tutor on both the Bachelor and the Master ‘Fashion Design’ in  Arnhem.  For the  last years I have been working as Head Designer Ready-to-Wear at VIKTOR & ROLF.’

What do you do at AMFI?
‘I work at AMFI with the graduating Fashion & Design students. I guide them on their collection development , on paper. And for the students who will not make a collection for the catwalk  I will help them realize some of their ideas in 3D form.’

How do you like it so far?
‘Well I just started but my experience till now is positive. I feel very comfortable with the approach AMFI has towards fashion: it is about industrialized creativity.’