What to design in a world of plenty?

What to design in a world of plen to design in

n in a world of plenty?

world of plenty?

Powered by Keep an Eye Foundation

Masterclass by Hella Jongerius

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Introduction Mark van Vorstenbos

Beyond the New

Manifest

Hella Jongerius & Louise Schouwenberg

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18

Maste

Roots & Trad

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Recy

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Q&

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Personal Story

dition 22

DIY

&A

Theme 2

Theme 1

Handcraft and (im)modesty

ycling

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Video

world of plenty? What to desi g n in a wor

erclass

Theme 5

Theme 6

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Tactility

Theme 3

Theme 4

In November 2019 the KABK Textile & Fashion Department organized a Masterclass with internationally renowned Dutch industrial designer Hella Jongerius, generously supported by the Keep An Eye Foundation.

As a design department with a unique profile combining textile and fashion design we aim to educate the designers of the future. However, the way our current industries are organized have devastating implications for the future of our planet. Therefore and with great concern we urgently wish to question and redefine our design disciplines and their socioeconomical, ecological and cultural implications.

How can we as future designers from our often personally oriented positions take responsibility to contribute to a better world at large?

With this question in mind we started to reach out to gamechangers and other influential people within the industry and the international field of design to see how they deal with these issues on a professional level. First in line was Hella Jongerius.

“How can we as future designers from our often personally oriented po

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In 2015 Hella Jongerius and design theorist Louise Schouwenberg wrote their manifest ‘Beyond the New’ in which they called for a more engaged idealism in design. Furthermore, in 2018 Hella Jongerius and her Berlin-based design studio Jongeriuslab founded the Weavers Werkstatt, an initiative that stimulates the development of weaving knowledge among designers. This started as a master class, where a like-minded designers engage in the craft of weaving; concerned about the loss of knowledge and the need for more experimental creative space to nourish and renew this craft and to offer solutions to

the challenges that the textile sector is facing.

Inspired by her engagement we invited Hella on November 11th in 2019 to give a lecture to the entire KABK-community talking about her practice, sharing her personal drive, her education, experiences with various clients and industrial realities and how they changed her attitude towards her current more activist approach within the field of design.

After the lecture she asked all participating 55 students to reflect on the question: “Do you remember a personal fascination in your early childhood that made you completely forget about time?”

Based on this individual inspiration she then handed the following assignment: “What to design in a world of plenty?”

Students responded to the questions in a statement of max 250 words, then using this to materialize a free work. After working on their projects for a week the students had the opportunity to reflect on and to discuss their work with Hella during individual meetings. The day after a selection of the works was presented at the beautiful Museum Voorlinden during an

our society. Surprisingly most of the ideas gave rise to new questions or discussions that tend to move beyond material products or instant solutions. The beginning of inspiring unknown territories and future scenarios.

This publication gives an impression of the Masterclass, a kaleidoscopic variety of enthusiastic attempts in design research, exploring big themes and small themes, resulting in artistic, industrial, personal, vulnerable, quirky, witty, critical but above all creative and authentic projects.

Mark van Vorstenbos, Head of the Bachelor Textile & Fashion Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

ositions take responsibility to contribute to a better world at large?” open Happening to celebrate the outcome and open ourselves up to new concepts and possibilities. An expert panel consisting of Hella Jongerius, Mark van Vorstenbos (Head KABK Textile & Fashion Design), Maaike Rozenburg (Head KABK Master Industrial Design) and Suzanne Swarts (Director Museum Voorlinden) moderated by design critique Lucas Verweij evaluated and discussed the works together with their makers in front of an audience of students, teachers, colleagues and guests. The idea was to collect a blueprint of what is alive in this generation of future designers in response to the current needs of

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Manifest

Beyond the New A search for ideals in design Hella Jongerius & Louise Schouwenberg We advocate an idealistic agenda in design, as we deplore the obsession with the New for the sake of the New, and regretfully see how the discipline lacks an intimate interweaving of the values that once inspired designers, as well as the producers of their ideas.

Count the blessings of industry. Industrial processes have greater potential than low-volume productions of exclusive designs, which reach such a limited market that talk of ‘users’ can hardly be taken seriously. Industries can make high-quality products available to many people. We should breathe new life into that ideal.

It is absurd and arrogant to begin the design process with an empty piece of paper. Cultural and historical awareness are woven into the DNA of any worthwhile product. Otherwise the designer is merely embracing newness for its own sake – an empty shell, which requires overblown rhetoric to fill it with meaning. There is value in continually re-examining what already exists, delving into the archives, poring over the classics. What untapped potential do the materials, colours, functions and forms, still hold.

Design is not about products. Design is about relationships. Good design can draw, almost invisibly, on different levels of meaning to communicate with users. It suggests a lack of imagination when those opportunities are not exploited to the fullest.

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Aesthetic value is a potent means of communication. Ugliness is also a potent means of communication. Without aesthetic refinement and without friction at the boundaries of aesthetics, there can be no personal signature and no intimate relationship with the user.

Designers who take themselves seriously strike an effective balance between their experimental, visionary

projects and the compelling designs that are worth pursuing for manufacturers.

Everyday products are used, seen, touched. The tactile and expressive qualities of materials are important means of communication, and ask for a hands-on design process, an intense exploration of textures that appeal to the human scale.

By means of its language and employment of techniques, good design expresses both the zeitgeist and a deep awareness of the past.

Design ≠ Art. Good ideas in design require further development after they are presented in museums as experimental, eye-catching gestures. Only then will they add meaning to the world of daily objects and reach a larger public.

Know the companies that share your moral and aesthetic values.

Know the others too.

By addressing the ‘afterlife’ of every product, designers contribute to a change of mentality in both users and producers. An all-encompassing approach requires designers not to focus exclusively on the functionality and expressive power of a design, but also to investigate how maintenance and repair can be integrated into the final product. Designers should be aware of the circular economy they are embedded in.

Many design students question the role design plays in today’s world, aiming to solve larger societal problems with their work, empower the users with surprising strategies, and entice passionate debate on the implications of the newest media. In the meantime professionals are ploughing ahead with business as usual, sending one egocentric design after another out into the world. Is the future generation naïve, or more in tune with the world around them? In any case: the gap between higher ideals and industry is too large.

Terms like ‘authenticity’ and ‘sustainability’ become empty verbiage when the hidden agenda is still, as usual, economic returns. Imagine a future where shared ideals and moral values point the way!

An initial concept is not worth very much. A final concept is not worth much either. An idea must be thoroughly tested in the real world before it can lead to a viable product. Young designers have to put in the hours.

Experienced designers and companies need to ‘kill their darlings’ once in a while.

Without play, there can be no design that inspires the user. Without foolishness and fun there can be no imagination.

An industry that is willing to embrace new challenges and experimentation has the power to exploit the full potential of existing and new technologies, including the digital media.

Good design entails research. Good design equals research. We owe it to the field to reflect on our own practices, again and again, and to investigate every component, again and again.

Design requires a constant research of new idioms, a battle against presuppositions, a push of the limits, and the continual refinement of responses to fundamental questions, like ‘What can design add to the world of plenty?’ and ‘What is functionality in the here and now?’.

Lost Ideals We are in search for new ideals in design, a holistic approach on all levels. We make no pretence of having fully achieved those ideals in our own work, as a designer and the head of a design programme. But we do wish to emphasize the urgent need for an idealistic agenda, so that our profession does not fall prey to lethargic selfsatisfaction.

Design has become an impoverished field. Yes, designers have solved many problems and conceived of many functions that are relevant to future problems. And they are now devoting attention to an unfathomable range of production methods from artisanal techniques to the very newest media.

Designers have put forward activist agendas, devised strategies, and harnessed the full expressive and narrative potential of everyday objects. The field has expanded its horizons out to infinity. This has led not only to a huge

array of products and strategies, but also to a wide variety of presentation platforms, including many international design events.

Design is flourishing. But the field has not benefited. What most design events have in common are the presentations of a depressing cornucopia of pointless products, commercial hypes around presumed innovations, and empty rhetoric.

We think the reasons for the decline of interesting developments in design are the lack of cohesion between the many facets of the profession, and the prominent role afforded to economic returns.

We have lost sight of the higher ideals that were so central to the most influential movement by far in industrial design. The Bauhaus ideals - making the highest possible quality accessible to many people – were based on the intimate interweaving of cultural awareness, social engagement, and economic returns. For companies, this meant that production had to be organized as intelligently and inexpensively as possible, on the condition that ‘the highest possible quality’ was guaranteed.

Today, design companies are trapped in a rat race for the largest market share. In most industrial production processes the marketing and communication departments have taken the lead and the company’s competitive energy is focused completely on increasing sales. The ideal of the ‘highest possible quality’, which by necessity implies and demands an intricate 8 layering of cultural and historical mean-

ings and values, plays a marginal role these days. Naturally every generation is entitled to embrace the zeitgeist, to design something new. However, currently the appeal of the NEW is celebrated as the one and only, inherently desirable quality of commodities. As such it no longer equals real innovation and might even be rephrased as ‘the illusion of the new’. An empty shell, devoid of meaning and substance; design has become a goal instead of a means to an end.

Designers should take the lead The special status of designers in between users and producers gives them the opportunity to take the lead in a much-needed change of mentality.

Yet, they rarely do.

Designers are pivotal to industrial design. Any shift in mentality should thus begin with them. They can take users seriously by making them look at the world of everyday objects with fresh eyes, and challenge them to appreciate the incorporated meanings, the details, the traces of a great variety of manufacturing techniques.

They can draw the attention of industry to the importance of a better balance between high quality, unfettered creativity, enthusiastic experimentation, social responsibility, and economic factors. A renewed all-encompassing approach to design will not simply mean returning to past ideals, but will deal with today’s challenges and possibilities. It will embrace a rich layering of qualities and not necessarily lead to simplicity in design, nor will it be a heavy moral burden that stifles the imagination. An idealistic agenda will rather be a liberation from the schizophrenic subdivision of our field and the stifling rut in which users, designers, and producers have been caught for far too long. It’s time to rid ourselves of the obsession with the new.

The tactile and expressive From: Beyond the New – A search for ideals in design Text: Hella Jongerius & Louise Schouwenberg Published by: Hella Jongerius & Louise Schouwenberg, 2015

November 2019 Masterclass Hella Jongerius

qualities of materials are important means

of communication

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Theme 1 Personal Story

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“Strong in its vulnerability” Mark van Vorstenbos The Words I Want to Say are Gone by Sohyun Park, Textile and Fashion year 2 11

Theme 1 Personal Story

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Ode to Childhood by Stijn Kok, Textile and Fashion year 2 13

Theme 1 Personal Story

“Train your

intuition, it’s

your heart.”

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s a tool that is helpful and close to

�

Hella Jongerius

Filtering our Imperfection by Yara de Vries, Textile and Fashion year 1 15

Theme 1 Personal Story

“The material told me it did not wan 16

nt to be in this society.�

Marcos Kueh Sheng

Marcos Kueh Sheng, Graphic Design year 2 17

Theme 2 Roots & Tradition

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“I want to become a part of making sure these souls won’t be forgotten.”

Faces of Tradition by Annalie van Doorn, Textile and Fashion year 1

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Theme 2 Roots & Tradition

I strongly believe that I should bring

people of colour go through on a dai

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“bring to light the racial injustice that is still happening in our 21st century world.�

awareness to the social struggles

ily basis, especially women of colour.

Skin deep by Laila-Sophie Surges, Textile and Fashion year 1 21

Theme 3 Handcraft and (im)modesty

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gs din un rro su , ng cti tru ns co de by g lin ea rev n de hid the ng hti lig igh dh an

The Virtue of Modesty by Sohyun Park, Textile and Fashion year 2

t de

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Theme 3 Handcraft and (im)modesty

es!

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’s the new Her Xiaoyo Wen, Textile and Fashion year 1 25

Theme 4 Tactility

never start with

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h an empty shee

Malin Dittman, Textile and Fashion year 2 27

Theme 5 Recycling

Is your perfect the same as my perfe 28

“Perfect does not exist.”

ect?

Fashion Industries Leftovers by Céline Bregman, Textile and Fashion year 2 29

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All objects are relics, they are proof that something has happened before us. I am interested in the capacity of objects to tell stories, and the history.

We can read in objects this contrast of being resistant to time, they remain while we get old and die, but also this fragility that they carry, as they are not eternal either.

ÂŤ mononoaware Âť : the Japanese word about being conscious of the ephemeral nature of everything that happens and the sweet sadness that results from it. It evokes melancholy.

Theme 5 Recycling

bjects have emotional capacities. The

“I beli reside with th projec mater objec in the objec ities. T physic They c of our our th objec notion they p appea they a objec some am int to tell read i resist get ol they c either notion in one prese surfac be vis es and makin contra work f using that e there, valuab

Lucie

ieve that the essence of objects es in the relationships we have them. Our psychological life is cted into the objects and the rial world. We think through our cts. Each relation is engraved both e memory of the subject and in the ct. Objects have emotional capacThey are a support of memory, a cal expression of the immaterial. can be perceived as containers r thoughts, or screens on which houghts are printed. I believe that cts contain in their identity the n of time. As witnesses of the past, prove the passage of time. Time ars as if it is frozen into them, but also carry the movement of it. All cts are relics, they are proof that ething has happened before us. I terested in the capacity of objects stories, and the history. We can in objects this contrast of being tant to time, they remain while we ld and die, but also this fragility that carry, become they are not eternal r. I am interested in working on this n of the old and new combined e object, the merging of past and ent, by removing some part of the ce but still letting the previous layer sible. Associating different imagnd layers can create metaphors, ng visual poetry. I like to play with asts in colours and textures, and to from traditional patterns and craft, g the old to bring the new. I believe everything in the world is already , and I see old objects as highly ble.�

ey are a support of memory, a physic

e Ponard

Outdated Ceramics by Lucie Ponard, Master Industrial Design year 1 31

Theme 5 Recycling

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Sina Dyks, Textile & Fashion year 3 33

Theme 6 DIY

pla 34

ay with my idea Jaiho Park, Interior Architecture and Furniture Design year 2 35

Q&A In a collective attempt to meet the Master’s Mind a group of KABK students organized an informal Q&A conversation with Hella Jongerius.

In preparation they had gathered the topics that where alive in their community to discuss. Matters such as authentic inspiration, tactility, craft, methods of working, researching, combining disciplines, the transformative power of good design, they all touched upon where a genuine personal drive and professional mentality can actually meet.

00:00:01 Interviewer: Hella Jongerius, welcome.

Thank you for having us. Students have prepared these questions over the past few days, just thinking about personal things, not so much doubling with everything else you’ve said and shared already. So hopefully that’s ok and worked out fine. We’ve made the interview guide in this order and we hope to have the conversation with you.

First question: how do you translate your abstract idea into a visual idea? A really tough one to begin with.

00:00:50 Hella Jongerius: An abstract idea is just a thought, like - I’ve got an idea… If I think the idea is good enough, I’d like to see it, I start to make things. And of course, I have people in my studio, and I ask them: can you make this, can you do this? So, I immediately start to make my ideas. And then if I see after the first thing – that it’s nothing, it’s just an idea,

it doesn’t have a physical interesting balance in it, then I stop the thing. But I immediately start, because an idea is nothing, I get hundreds of ideas a day, everybody has ideas, idea is very airy, it is nothing. So as soon as it becomes something, and it becomes something later on again, and it’s proposed to a client or to a museum, each time you filter it out and something stays, and that is an end result. But the ideas are airy, I don’t have a lot of weight on my ideas.

00:01:31 Interviewer: Yes, they come and go.

The follow-up on that is: do other disciplines contribute somehow?

00:01:44 Hella Jongerius: All the disciplines in my work?

00:02:01 Interviewer: In your process.

00:02:05 Hella Jongerius: Like interior design, or dance?

00:02:26 Interviewer: Whatever that comes to your mind when this question is asked.

00:03:13 Hella Jongerius: I don’t know. I don’t have food design, or social design.

I’m going to dance something, this will be a new chapter, and it’s really another discipline. I’m also feeling, I know nothing about dance. How do I do this? Because if you’re in this new area like dance you can’t do something

amateur. You have to immediately know what is going on in dance, what is contemporary, who is the best or the one that I find interesting. So, if you come up with a new topic you can’t do it as an amateur. Although I am an amateur on dance, so you need experts and to talk a lot, look a lot at dance. So, it’s not so easy to come with a new discipline. The level has to be high. Otherwise, why bother if you do something amateuristic, or something that is done before – it is not interesting.

00:04:15 Interviewer: And I suppose other disciplines in designs mean more to you? The question was what do other disciplines mean to you, it’s an open question; not so much how do you work with it, but how you relate to it.

00:04:22 I think the very important thing is that’s all related and has to do something with culture and creativity, is the oxygen of our world. And in that sense I think it’s very important to know a lot and see a lot of exhibitions in art, and dance (and theater I’ll skip, I’m very quickly bored). There are people who are more interested in music or dance, but I can’t do it all, but for art, I see a lot of exhibitions, but not only cultural stuff – also need to know what’s going on in politics, in climate, you can’t only relate on cultural disciplines because it’s all related to reality in the world. It is being open for the now.

“

“Make a lot. And also, do

00:05:42 Interviewer: And speaking about the

now, you also have a great value to the past. How do you build your archive?

00:05:54 Hella Jongerius: My own archive? Just by working, it’s easy. Because when you have something ready, it’s a part of your archive. Or is it more a question how do you order it? Because it’s quite a lot of work to order it.

00:06:15 Interviewer: Yes, there was a related question: how does the theory – the ideas and the research that you’ve done – relate to the actual outcome?

How do you work with your archive?

00:08:02 Hella Jongerius: Organic, it’s growing and expanding. Sometimes I think – there’s so much stuff. Because we just did the textile archive, a real archive, so all photographed, all with a title, all in boxes, it’s a digital file, it’s amazing.

I could say, 60% I’ve never used, because it’s not ready, it’s not the best, not good, it’s not for now.

00:08:45 Interviewer: It might come out of the drawer.

00:08:47 Hella Jongerius: Maybe, or maybe not, a good reason why it’s not existing yet – it wasn’t good enough.

Because there people can see your potential.

00:10:24 Interviewer: And speaking of ideas, if there are a lot of ideas what design is supposed to be, what art is supposed to be. And students are struggling with that at the art academy, also in different departments. What are your definitions?

00:10:42 Hella Jongerius: Fine arts are difficult.

In a way for me it’s easy because sometimes I have a client that is a museum, but I can’t call them “clients”, it’s something else, it’s a cultural institute. And I’ve got clients like companies, and the companies want something to function, a functional thing. But functionality is… in a way, I also make things like vases, that you can use, but for me it’s something else, it’s an object. It’s very difficult to define art and design, especially if you are in the art school and you’re just starting. I myself find it very difficult to say about something that I make: this is art. I find it very difficult. The show that I had in Paris, I had a whole wall with all tries, things, 3D weaving, and I was afraid to pick one out and hand it on a wall - this is the piece. I didn’t dare. I was so afraid to do that. I just hung them all in one wall as a research because I was afraid to frame it as art. Because suddenly you get all the other perspective and people look so differently to this particular thing. I have too much respect for art. Also, there are people who are architects, and they’re going to make furniture, and it’s

“How do you work with your archive?

00:06:41 Hella Jongerius: Everything is related.

I have many unbaked breads. If I do a project, I have many ideas, I have many little things, I’ve got things that are almost ready but I didn’t show, so I look at many unbaked breads I have everywhere in my studio, or digital or whatever. So, if there is something new coming up, I always look at what I did before, and I combine it again. This is how I use my archive – the archive in form, but also in ideas – imperfection is always there, all my knowledge about crafts. The clients have their archives, the museums where I work have archives, so it’s always all interwoven with each other. I pick things and stack on top of each other. The actual thing is new, because it will be a one trick pony stuff. It is a very active archive.

00:09:00 Interviewer: And do you have methods that you would recommend the students in archiving their work?

00:09:05 Hella Jongerius: I would say, make a lot.

Make a lot. And also, don’t immediately show everything, some of it need to ripe, grow older. So, make a lot.

Because nobody sees what’s in your head. I’m always prepared if there’s a question like – can we do an exhibition, or there’s a client, in a way I’m almost ready because I have my own vision, I have a lot of things to talk about, so I’m always two steps forward. If you have a rich archive, and somebody calls you, you sit at the table and say - I did this and that before, it’s all in your head, just ideas. Show that you have a table of work or boxes, make it physical.

on’t immediately show everything, some of it need to ripe, grow older.”

00:08:01 Interviewer: Seems sort of organic sometimes.

always bad furniture. Or artists that are making chairs, not asking a product designer. And now I’m a designer making art. I feel very uncomfortable.

I’m very afraid, although I think it’s all fluid. But I’m very afraid to freeze one of these – this is an art piece to do this display. It’s not only for students but also for me, very uncomfortable.

00:13:15 Interviewer: And possibly a reason is that people can touch your work usually, in a museum there is more distance. The students noticed that tactility is very important to you. Why is that?

00:13:31 Hella Jongerius: Because I make functional products, so I call myself designer, and I think tactility or texture is a scale that communicates not only with your eyes but also with your hands. I think it’s an important topic so that a product communicates, it’s not only about tactility, but relation between a person and a thing. This relationship is not only about – ah, beautiful. No, it’s also the touch, it’s also the idea behind, the context, it’s a multilayered thing. And texture – that’s the difference with art. You can touch it. And I think that’s a quality that we have to use. Because it’s not a sense. Also, for textile, textile’s in a way is only a material that has texture.

If you have textile, give it texture, or play with texture. This haptic quality is very important.

00:15:00 Interviewer: And how do you choose

which textiles you use?

However you’ll interpret inclusivity.

00:15:10 Hella Jongerius: Textiles in my furniture? I make my own textiles, so I use those. But for Vitra I’m designing the textiles or I’m picking the textiles, that’s a complex puzzle of what has to be a good price for the companies - the price is important, the mill is important – we’re not going to do a mill in Asia, so we want to have it close to the company for transport reasons and sustainability, so it has to be a mill in Europe where to weave.

We have to have more products from this mill otherwise the logistics is too expensive, if we only do it for once. So, all the logistic and practical reasons make it already smaller. And if you have testing results, we need for the companies like Vitra, that’s another one. Then I get samples from the companies and I choose something that I think – that is the texture or this is the binding that I like, or this is a piece of furniture that need to have more bulky fabric, or needs a glossy fabric – this is how we choose. But these are a lot of practical reasons that make the path small.

00:16:58 Hella Jongerius: I’m not a social designer, but I also did things for Ikea, for a reason of non-expensive pieces, the vases. Also, for Ikea I did project in India with a group of women, it was another way of looking at inclusivity. I Nepal we do the carpets, we looked at communities so it really contributes to the society. So, this is how I do it. But for Maharam, my company in New York, they just have mills in the States, it’s just a commercial brand with commercial things, there I push boundaries in the textile so it’s not just a print. I like to do a bit more, this is why I have to sit and weave myself, try myself – first smaller bits, bring them to the industry, and they make the translation. I think it is very important that you weave and show the woven piece instead of computerized because they will always say: it’s not possible. Or you get something back and it’s so flat. You have to deliver texture too, not only the picture but the texture, the structure or the bindings.

Otherwise you get flat stupid things back.

00:16:40 Interviewer: The path towards the production is small, but the outcomes are usually for a large group of people?

00:19:17 Interviewer: Possibilities are enormous that way. And collaborating with companies is something very important, did you already have a network with different companies during your academy time?

Don’t sit and wait. Just go make, make, make what

00:16:46 Hella Jongerius: Yes. 00:16:50 Interviewer: The question is: how do you see textile design for inclusivity?

00:19:24 Hella Jongerius: No.

00:19:29 Interviewer: How did you start working with them?

00:19:32 Hella Jongerius: I think the best thing to do if you want to be picked up by a company – work for a few years on your own collection, make the things you think are important, show them, on Instagram, make again, ask for funding. That’s how I first did it, I received funding. Show your work, so everybody knows you. And then there could be a moment that you are picked up. Because all the companies are looking for a nice new work, but they want somebody who has a bodywork.

You don’t pick up somebody with just one idea, but who has already a table full of possible products. It doesn’t have to be ready, but – this is who I am. Pick me up for who I am. And if you are a weaver, only show weaves, then you can be picked by a correct people.

My first call was after a lecture. So, it’s always good to do lectures. It’s also not easy to be picked up but the first telephone call will be for a magazine or doing a lecture. Always do this lecture.

Also, if you are afraid. I was also very afraid. But do the lecture because in the audience there are people who want to pick you up. That’s often the case. Also, for me. I did a lecture in the States and Maharam picked me up.

And with the first work for the company than it goes easy. You need to have your first company. It took me eight years and it takes normally five to eight years. Don’t sit and wait. Just go make, make, make what you want to make.

Your first years you don’t have that

much cost. So, you can do, you can make stuff.

00:21:45 Interviewer: I can imagine that Maharam and you have the same kind of values and the same expertise that fits. How do you refer to that?

00:22:03 Hella Jongerius: Refer in the sense of?

00:22:08 Interviewer: How does Maharam know that Hella has these same kinds of values? You already said you’re not a social designer but of course there is a perspective on human values.

the flame-retardant chemicals, they changed that in 2008. So yeah, I was very happy that they were one of the first. Then you stay also longer. I’m now I’m twenty years with them. Also, in the way you build on your own and it is always a compromise. their archive. So, you are part of their archive. And is it so much easier if you were ten years with somebody you have relation with someone. Yeah, they are very strict, New Yorkish, very strict.

Still, we deliver like ten ideas and they pick only one, you think “Oh my god.

They only take one.” So, it’s not like that everything I do is easy with them. They are very, very demanding.

t you want to make. Your first years you don’t have that much cost. So, you c

00:22:23 Hella Jongerius: They saw me as a craft person. That I could bring more crafty textiles. That was what they were looking for. You know, I’m twenty years with them and then sometimes I deliver something that’s totally not what I normally do, and they say: “But that’s not you!” and I say, “C’mon I’m developing!”. Yeah, but you know you as the crafty person. Give me space, I’m developing. I’m doing something else. But a brand wants to have you in a box. Because it’s easy to sell. These are the commercial rules.

00:24:29 Interviewer: When do you have the feeling something is finished?

00:24:37 Hella Jongerius: I think something is never finished. As soon as I deliver it. You have to finish it for a certain deadline. There you have to finish it.

An Idea can be finished in your head.

You think: “Now I’ve got the last bit of the puzzle!”. That’s something you can feel. You feel like a drop, that’s the last layer I need to make it a brilliant idea, let’s say it that way. But if I deliver something to a company, I am always disappointed. “Ok, so this will be it”.

Because it is always a compromise.

So, you come in the company and say: “This is it”. Everybody’s enthusiastic.

Next meeting: “This is not possible.

You have to take this off. This is too expensive.” In the end of the whole thing it’s a compromise. I’m always kind of disappointed with the things that go in production. But that’s the way

something is never finish 00:23:10 Interviewer: Values are changing, so you are also changing.

00:23:15 Hella Jongerius: I’m very happy that they had a sustainability agenda in 2008 started already. The finishing,

it works. That’s the way the ball rolls.

So, in that sense I’m never finished. I am always thinking “OK. Now this is in production, but I COULD make it like this!” or “If we go to that company...”.

But there is a commercial deadline.

So, we have to go on and I have to let go and say “OK, I can live with this compromise”. You have to be very flexible. Because you get a lot of stops during your work, a lot of “No, this is not possible”. See it as a creative hurdle.

I can be creative, and I go to the right and then they say no, to the right is also not fine. You have to see that as a nice game. Otherwise you get frustrated.

See it as a game. Also, keep it positive.

Because if there is a grumpy designer in the company, nobody will call you.

They are not waiting for somebody who is sturdy. It’s a game. We’re all in the game. You give a bit; you take a bit back. You dance with each other.

00:27:19 Interviewer: Would you say that there is a method to solve a problem? There are challenges, no-s along the way.

But how would you solve a particular problem?

00:27:37 Hella Jongerius: What’s the problem?

00:27:45 Interviewer: You just described the dance, of course. Let’s say that that problem is not so much in the production or the people that you work with to finish a product but more customer related. So, the customer has a problem or a question and about that you design.

00:28:11 Interviewer: Yes.

take decisions on a business model.

Finances. Strategies. Building up a brand. That has to be in your blood. Otherwise it will never work.

Or find someone who’s more an entrepreneur. A lot of designers don’t make it because there are not good entrepreneurs.

00:28:15 Hella Jongerius: Yeah, then I go back to the drawing.

00:30:18 Interviewer: So, you get into the heads and minds of the clients.

00:28:06 Hella Jongerius: The client has a problem like we cannot sell this or make it or its not fire retardant?

00:28:20 Interviewer: You say, you make it work.

Left or right.

00:28:23 Hella Jongerius: Yes, of course. That’s my work. You have to be seen as the problem-solver. Not the one who’s on the break. They are on the break and I’m the problem-solver. I’m always with a smile. “That’s impossible” – “Hm, let me have a thought on it”. And sometimes you may be very principal: “Sorry, I can’t do this. If I do this, then I don’t recognize myself anymore.”

00:29:17 Interviewer: That’s also a way of dealing with things that go unexpected?

00:29:21 Hella Jongerius: Yeah. I don’t know, it’s in the stories, but the fact that you have to be an entrepreneur is a big part of your talent. If you’re not an entrepreneur of yourself, you can’t do business. Because in my case it’s 50 percent of my job. My daily job is being a businessperson, too.

Creative business, but you have to

00:30:23 Hella Jongerius: But also, if you can build up your own company. With people, assistants, a project manager, logistics, a studio. It’s really running a business.

00:30:37 Interviewer: And distribution of ideas and design, basically everything that comes in with a company as well.

Sending what is the value of that according to you? So, this distribution aspect of having a company or your company?

00:31:02 Hella Jongerius: I find it very important.

I think the bigger the audience the more your message is spread out. And the audience is only big if the product also has a good price because if it’s very expensive it’s in the magazines.

I was more on the mood board than the people that bought my work. But that’s also a way of being in the bigger audience. It doesn’t have to be sold.

It can also be the picture that gives the value, a picture of the idea. And if

that’s connected to you, that’s also a way of reaching audience. Especially if you don’t have a client, you can reach a huge audience with Instagram. Use that power.

00:32:07 Interviewer: And we’ve come to the last question 00:32:16 Hella Jongerius: But I would like to add something to the large audience because on Instagram of course, you can show an idea. But if you really want to do something sustainable and make use of images like, I did for KLM this carpet from the stewardess dresses.

This is something you can only do and reach a lot of people if you actually really make this cradle to cradle carpet.

So, to really change something in the world, that’s difficult with only a picture.

It has to become a physical thing in the whole system of selling and producing.

This exhibition is again an important one. And I’m going to continue with Vitra, we’re going to make the material library sustainable. That’s the idea.

And for Maharam, I work. But I don’t know. I’m also so happy that I don’t know. Because if you know, you cannot dream anymore. So, I’m happy to have an open, an empty chapter that’s coming up. Although, of course, something is always coming up.

00:34:45 Interviewer: It’s important to keep dreaming.

00:34:46 Hella Jongerius: Yeah, to keep it open.

00:34:54 Interviewer: Beautiful. Thank you very much Hella.

00:34:58 Hella Jongerius: You’re welcome!

00:33:09 Interviewer: It’s a perfect bridge. What are the future changes you want to make?

00:34:59 Interviewer: There’s still some time. If you feel like the urge to ask additional questions…

00:33:10 Hella Jongerius: For myself? Yeah, for now, I’m working again on a show in a museum about weaving. About dancing with weaving. So, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what happened there. You know I’m starting. It has to be in one and a half week. So, I’m building up a team. That’s always what I do, I build teams for a certain idea. And then they work with me for one a half or half a year or sometimes three months.

00:35:11 Interviewer 2: I remember a couple of months back I was talking to this guy about technology. I said I am studying fashion and I like to recycle and upcycle things. He said, that was a beautiful idea. But I think its human nature to, especially in big companies, to say you manage to make it very popular to make a certain object with recycled materials. Then companies will just skip recycling because it takes

more energy and then just go to the raw materials to make it look like that. I mean it was conflicting to me because in a certain way, it was like an idealistic bubble burst. Yeah at the same time I was wondering if that’s actually true because, I mean no one of us have made it so we don’t know exactly if it’s true but it’s valuable.

00:36:09 Hella Jongerius: It’s very difficult to get a sustainable agenda for a company.

The whole thing about this recycling and upcycling. What they need to have is that they can produce a certain volume and the rest of the material or the waste material is always small. This is not a continuous waste source. So, it’s a bit of this, a bit of that. And each time, you need to test it. So, the waste is quite difficult to get in the system of efficiency. That’s the whole problem.

Only if the ones who are making materials, the yarn makers and the fibre makers, if they are the first ones who have to make it sustainable or recycle materials that are fire retardant and all the shit you need and then companies can work with it.

00:37:27 Interviewer 2: As a small designer, I can’t.

00:37:28 Hella Jongerius: No, you know, you can make one piece but, in this system, it is very difficult. That’s why it’s not happening that much because everybody wants it but the basic materials need to be first sustainable and then they cost much more and that

means that companies say: “Yeah but our target group will never buy this.” Or they have to change the whole brand.

00:40:03 Interviewer: Thank you very much.

00:38:19 Interviewer 2: It’s easier to sell in brands like in the car industry. Tesla, for instance.

00:39:45 Hella Jongerius: Yeah, it is. But it’s also part of your signature. You don’t want to be the dirty fashion designer; you want to be the new generation designer.

Team Marketing & Communications

00:39:44 Interviewer 2: It’s kind of a passive way of protesting.

Coordinators and teachers of the Bachelor Textile & Fashion

00:39:18 Hella Jongerius: Of course, they look at students and see that nobody is working with new materials and that’s a signal. Students on fashion shows, on schools nobody is using new materials.

They know it’s not done.

All KABK students who participated in this Masterclass

00:39:11 Interviewer: … stay positive.

Thank you Keep an Eye Foundation Hella Jongerius Jongeriuslab Museum Voorlinden

00:38:26 Hella Jongerius: Or give it’s another life. Call it luxury. Or if people want to spend more money, you can also brand it differently. And then you have to look at the consumers. Are they ready to see this as luxury? Change after change… But we will manage it because we know all the same. We know what the problem is. So, you have to...

Colophon Creative director Mark van Vorstenbos Editors Renee van der Hoek Mark van Vorstenbos

Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Hague Bachelor Textile & Fashion

KABK

Concept and Graphic design Lin Ven Photographers Katarina Juričić Images Hella Jongerius

Roel van Tour Video Eelco Busch

November 2019

What to design in

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What to design in a world of ple

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