BRANKOPOPOVICBLOG: The Class of 2024

buccia

The Class of 2024, a selection of promising 2024 graduates from main Dutch academies were presented during the 16th edition of FASHIONCLASH Festival

Providing a platform for a new generation of talents is one of the core values of FASHIONCLASH. Every year thousands of designers graduate worldwide, a selection of which is eventuallu presented during FASHIONCLASH Festival. Although the festival functions as an international platform, supporting talent from the Dutch academies is an important starting point. Graduation shows are visited continuously, talent is followed online and offline and there is close contact with the various design educations to be up to date and to be able to respond to the appropriate ways to support talent. This also includes giving presentations for students, workshops and thus maintaining a sense of what support is actually needed.
Not only the talent of the fashion academies is followed, but also of other art forms, because FASHIONCLASH is after all a crossover and multimedia platform. For example, there is close collaboration with the Maastricht Theater Academy.
Each festival edition many performers are students from the school, graduate projects are co-produced and many alumni keep returning back in cross-over projects. Personally, I think it is important, as artistic director, to stay in close contact with the new generation of designers and to visit as many graduation shows as possible every year. My personal highlights every year during FASHIONCLASH Festival is when a group of these recently graduated designers and artists are presented during the festival.

During the 16th edition of FASHIONCLASH Festival there was once again a nice selection of special talents whose projects have the ambition to create beautiful work and, above all, to contribute to a better world. Most of them were presented at Marres or within the concept of the New Fashion Narratives exhibition at Bureau Europa. Some were part of the fashion film program. Overall 20 recent graduates from the main Dutch fashion art acadmies were part of the festival program, showcasing a multiple perspecices of the rich educational landscape in the Netherlands.

Arva Bustin

From ArtEZ Arnhen there were Arva Bustin and Alyne Li. Iza van den Baar represented HKU Utrecht together with Sophie Fabre. From AMFI (Amsterdam Fashion Institute, there were graduates buccia (Allegra Spinella), UNCOMMON RAGE (David Dienaar) and Jinwon Kim, that I got to know as external examinator.
From KABK The Hague promising designer Wassim el Hodayebi was selected for the New Fashion Narratives exhibition and Peter Wertmann, also the winner of Lichting 2024, was part of the film program and also some of his clothes were part of the festival campaign video.
From Maastricht Institute of Arts one could discover Studio Wievien by Wievien Alberts and Valentijn Schmitz who graduated from the fine arts department. From Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam Olivia Sahl Jensen was featured in the selection of the New Fashion Narratives exhibition.
Mira Verhoeve, who graduated from the performance course at Toneelacademie Maastricht (Theatre Academy Maastricht) was part of the Amarte x FASHIONCLASH Project. From WDKA, Willem de Kooning Academy there was the promising Studio NNAEJ (Salomé Jeanne), who was part of the Afterparty program and Michał Zgierski with the digital fashion project ŻÓŁĆ was part of the fashion film program. And lastly from the Design Academy Eindhoven, that each edition is well represented, there were Matti Paffen, Lara van der Poel, Delia Rößer and Dana Elmi Sarabi.