Designer: Bas Kosters Studio

Collection: Spring Summer 2018

Title: My Paper Crown

Date: Thursday July 13 2017

Venue: Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Amsterdam

Target: Press, buyers, fashionistas, fans, friends, family, flippo’s and freaks.

Input: A grand show, the one village idiot, the artistic elite is hard working class too, a glorious countryside village art happening, carrot day celebrations, rococo and baroque versus farmer brass bands, positivism, activism including statements about gay oppression in Chechnya and saving tigers in cooperation with the WWF and most important anti-waste and anti-pollution by recycling flags from all over the world, raising a fist for a united and peaceful world.

Décor: a huge led-screen showing amongst others a carrot-come-alive cabaret in a carton box, a sky filled with bright white and blue clouds, the odd political messages and a carrot rain. On the catwalk: a huge god of the Bas Kosters World made of blue glitter material with yellow stars, reminiscent of the European flag. Several hand sown tapestries and banners that turned into costumes during the show, a bicycle, a potato mountain with the designer on top peeling potatoes during the entire show, gardens with real sunflowers, two carpenters building an impossible structure, a kitchen in full action with a cook making carrot soup, a huge skelter with a tv-screen and neon lights including a carrot… and way too much more to mention.

Seating music: the sounds of an English countryside meadow underneath some tracks from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with heaps of sound effects amplifying the actions of the actors on the runway and between guests, like brooms sweeping a floor, vacuum cleaners, hammering nails into wood, peeling carrots and potatoes, et cetera.

Show intro: two actors talking and sweeping the runway in expectation of the artistic elite, followed by a full on live brass band playing Dutch hippie classic ‘Land van Maas en Waal’, originally by Boudewijn de Groot.

Show mix: a high tempo 12-minute roller coaster including opera and operetta tunes set to a disco beat as the main ingredient, spiced up with samples from cartoon movies, Dutch carnival hits about wieners and so on, plain weird snippets of songs by cuckoo artists, beats by Cowgum and many sound effects like a cuckoo’s clock and Handel’s Hallelujah. Singer Miss Bunty came on live, singing about carrot day on top of our mix. Finale was again the brass band, that left the stage followed by all models and everybody who was involved in this show and the making of the collection.

Show production: Bas Kosters Studio

Choreography: Nathalie Haelermans and Bas Andrea at Frontrow-Backstage

Styling: Caroline Fuchs and Suze Kuit

Photo: Team Peter Stigter

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