Dylan Westerweel
Dylan Westerweel is the winner of Lichting 2019. That’s the annual fashion contest for freshly graduated Dutch fashion design students. Westerweel graduated with honors at the ArtEZ Arnhem fashion design department. He showed his work, together with 13 other participants from schools allover The Netherlands, at De Nieuwe Kerk. The Nieuwe Kerk (tr; New Church) is a wonderful venue used as catwalk during the Amsterdam Fashion Week. Since we cover this fashion contest each year we suggest you click here to get to know more about Lichting.
Homme Fatale
Westerweels winning collection ‘Jack Saul’ is inspired by rent boys from the Victorian era. Dylan created the male counterpart for the femme fatale with his vision and design talent. By using the beauty and sexuality of the boys as a weapon and a tool, he created a well balanced collection. The images above show what that story looks like.
(photocredits: Team Peter Stigter)
Jury is
Kim Bekker (Freelance Creative Direction for a.o. Isabel Marant), Eva Losada (Fashion Photographer), Jo Simpson (Curriculum leader at Fashion & Textiles department Central Saint Martins) and Rolien Zonneveld (Editor-in-chief for i-D Netherlands).
Jury says
“Over the course of fashion history, designers have reacted to, and in many cases influenced, the social and political frameworks of sexiness of their respective times. Today, with gender identities and expectations crumbling quicker than ever, the idea of what makes a man sexy has never been more fluid. Dylan’s collection was a refreshing take on what that masculine sexiness means in 2019. Inspired by the rent boys of the Victorian period, he gave us an interesting take on the idealised masculine silhouette, by crafting intricate corsets for men and combining it with soft and seductive fabrics. His use of embroidery, hand painting and 3D structures in florals and anatomical hearts showed great technical skill. His baby blue and magenta pink colour pallet, applied to soft hand dyed pink cotton and wools was original and fresh.”
Honourable mentions were given to Iris van Wees, graduate of AMFI Amsterdam Fashion Institute and Armia Yousefi, graduate of Utrecht School of the Arts.