Ronald van der Kemp is a Dutch couturier who has used sustainable sourcing and techniques that include — in this show — taking the cut-up pieces of misprinted money from Dutch banks and turning them into “pockets on a golden jacket.” Is that the jacket in slide 5, do we think? Is that detail all just teeny crumpled up bits of wrong cash? The rest of this show is a wild ride that is sometimes effective and sometimes just hella weird; he called it “intuitive,” which is not necessarily what I think of when I see a dress made of gold boxes, but that’s okay. His take is, “It has a very punk feeling, versus a perfection feeling… It’s basically: ‘Put down your phone, look at the person in front of you and feel empathy.’” Did I get that from the show? Well, I had empathy for some of the models, but it’s a lovely sentiment overall.
