Only designer Duran Lantink could bring together Spanish DJ and performance artist Virgen Maria, Steve Madden shoes and live strippers in the Red Light District for a truly theatrical and eye-catching runway presentation during Amsterdam Fashion Week.
“I like crashes instead of things going smoothly,” Lantink says with a laugh, sitting in his studio just days before the show’s Sept. 1 run. His design team nearby was in the middle of putting the finishing touches on a globe-like silver jacket inside the raw, industrial studio space, and a large pile of coats piled up in the designer’s favorite spot to dream up designs. cloud: his sofa. For as long as he can remember, Lantink has been interested in taking designer clothes apart and putting them together, or remaking existing work into something entirely new. When she was 12, she took her grandmother’s tablecloth and paired it with her father’s Diesel jeans to create a miniskirt. He also has a penchant for collaging designer shoes in a manner not unlike Frankenstein.
The list of extreme recycling projects that Lantink has been involved in is endless. He had his first runway show just last year; for the follow-up to his May 2022 presentation, he tapped members of SistaazHood, a support group for female trans sex workers in Cape Town, with whom he has worked for nearly a decade, to stage a cinematic and emotional performance in which each model was styled. He’s also dressed the famous band, designing pieces for Billie Eilish and Janelle Monáe (remember the vaginal pants she wore in the “Pynk” video?), Doja Cat — and most recently, Beyoncé, for her latest ads for Tiffany.
Beyoncé wearing a Duran Lantink coat in Tiffany & Co.’s “Love Yourself in Love” campaign.
Courtesy of Tiffany & Co.
“I have very expensive taste,” he says. “I always go for the more expensive stuff, but it’s not like I think, ‘Oh, this might be expensive,’ I just like the design.” Heavily inspired by his mother’s sense of style growing up, his first taste of fashion came when he witnessed her collection of Jean Paul Gaultier and Margiela. “In the late ’80s, in Amsterdam, there was a big party scene and I was always watching my mother get dressed up,” he says. “I was obsessed with those clothes rather than the materials. So for me, I was really looking at fashion from a styling point of view and it was logical to cut those things and connect them and create my own world out of it.” And despite being labeled as a sustainable brand , “The idea never came from ‘Let’s start recycling.’
Because of this, Lantink pieces are one-off, each unique. “I don’t necessarily want to call it couture, but I think it’s very important to find your own unique style in some way,” he says of the main message behind his brand. “It’s important for people who like my clothes or want to buy my clothes. They don’t necessarily have to be part of a group or community. There can be many individual people who want to express themselves in a [certain] way.”
For the aforementioned Steve Madden event during Amsterdam Fashion Week, Lantink was careful not to refer to it as a collaboration, but a “curated evening” of his own. Steve Madden bags and shoes, distinctly polar opposites, lined the walls of the intimate Moulin Rouge club as various acts, handpicked by Lantink, began to perform. The night’s headliner, Virgen Maria, opened the event wearing a laser bra and closed the venue by alternating between pole dancing and DJing, donning Lantink’s globular jacket before stripping down to sunglasses, a G-string bikini and her thong known. Artist Berat Bebek was spinning around the pole with the melody. Perhaps most visually stunning of all was singer and movement artist Christian Yav in an oversized red suit whose performance bordered on the spiritual.
“The Red Light District is seen as touristy and drugged up, but somehow it’s the most beautiful part of Amsterdam,” says Lantink. “I really wanted to do something to respect sex work and all these activities that happen in the neighborhood.”
Lantink’s aesthetic is completely extreme, slightly meme-like and deeply personal to him. Think: full-length leopard coats, cut from existing Dries Van Noten and Stand Studio jackets; or puffy black dresses, designed by Balenciaga and Acne Studios. “It was always like, ‘I think the sleeve would make a great top, or those pants would make a great dress.’ That’s just my way of thinking.”
Sure, Lantink is part of the now-ubiquitous generation of up-and-coming designers, but instead of taking scraps of fabric or clothes, he’s not afraid to pare down the designer’s glorious fashion. Another thing that stands out about Lantink is his perspective on the title “designer”. He easily switches between being called an artist and a curator. “I like it to be open,” he says. “If you curate material, you’re also curating material,” he says. “Having an eye to see what works or what doesn’t work is what I’m exploring right now.” The designer will then move to Paris full-time and unveil a fashion show in the city in January. If his latest show was anything to go by, it’s sure to be revolutionary.
