NEW YORK — From the Bowery to the Bronx, scads of areas in and around Manhattan adopted names belonging to the Dutch. Given that, it’s fitting that “Dutch at the Edge of Design,” a forthcoming museum exhibition, would find a home here.
With this exhibition, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology is trying to make Americans better acquainted with Marcel Wanders, Nicolette Brunklaus, Alexander van Slobbe and Viktor & Rolf’s Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren. In all, 75 out-of-the-norm examples of fashion and textiles from the Netherlands will be featured, representing the work of 50 designers, beginning Sept. 8.
Unlike the U.S. and Europe, where big brands cast a wide shadow on the retail scene, Dutch designers are not so tied to marketing and the bottom line. Without any real centralized fashion industry, designers tend to dally more in experimentation, craftsmanship and the wearer’s connection to a garment, as evidenced by Jan Taminiau’s dress that doubles as a blanket.
The Museum at FIT’s deputy director James Hanley credited Harumi Hotta, who cocurated the show with Clare Sauro, for realizing the Dutch design scene was percolating.
While fashion and textiles will be well represented, other disciplines like product design will also be showcased, including Wanders’ “knotted chair,” Niels van Eijik’s “lace lamp” and Gijs Bakker’s “knitted teapot.” “Dutch at the Edge of Design” is part of “Orange Alert: Dutch Design in New York,” a smattering of events and displays to be held in various museums and exhibition spaces around the city throughout the year.
In December, “Fashion in Colors: Viktor & Rolf & the Kyoto Costume Institute” will cap off Orange Alert at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, an exhibition that covers 300 years of Western fashion.
The Dutch design scene has been getting a warm embrace from the U.S. of late. In May, Donna Karan welcomed alumni from the Design Academy Eindhoven to use her late husband’s work studio for their first group show in the U.S. In the past decade, the school’s chair, Li Edelkoort, has been quietly attracting a band of loyalists, including Karan and downtown design guru Murray Moss.
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But Robert Kloos, director for visual arts of architecture and design for the Consulate General of the Netherlands, said the fanfare is long overdue. “This is 10 years in the making,” he said, singling out the Museum of Modern Art’s decision to set up a Dutch design cafe in 1995, as well as its survey exhibition of Dutch designers — something the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art also did around that time — and the emergence of Simply Droog on the Milan scene as the pivotal point in Dutch design.
“What’s interesting at this moment is the retail interest,” he added, pointing to Design Within Reach, the San Francisco-based retail chain, and Target as examples.