Shopping for Identity: Can We still Rebel?

The exhibition “MAISON AMSTERDAM. City, fashion, freedom.” shows over 250 years of fashion and the creation of revolution in an Amsterdam context

De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, 18 September 2021 - 3 April 2022

*This essay was written for the course “Design in Words” in Spring 2022 during my Master’s “Comparative Arts and Media Studies”

We have money, we have freedom. But what do we do with it? We spend it on things that manifest constraints we impose on ourselves because society told us so. Where is the revolutionary spirit of inventing yourself with clothes? Instead, we shop for a one-size-fits-all mash-up, because modernity still forces us to over-categorize in order to belong. Thus, we rehearse, again and again, the eternal theatre of our sexualized social structures, which are engineering certain outcomes. Some of these outcomes within the last 250 years are currently being presented in the fashion exhibition in De Nieuwe Kerk. The hope is that this exhibition in the city of boundlessness and possibilities will ignite a spark of passion in us so that we can find our own revolution.

Yes, “MAISON AMSTERDAM” takes us along with themes such as “artistic freedom, denim, streetwear and gender” through the Dutch capital. Even if Amsterdam doesn’t immediately come to mind as a city of fashion, this exhibition claims to prove us wrong. Undoubtedly so, there is something unique about Amsterdam. Even if it is not (yet) a Mecca for Haute Couture or Scandi-Chic, the city holds the promise of freedom to express oneself and experiment with looks and identity.

“The spirit of Amsterdam. That is the promise of freedom.”
– Femke Halsema (Mayor of Amsterdam)

As we travel through time (and through the De Nieuwe Kerk), we hear and see the stories of designers, couturiers, makers, wearers and fashion experts, stroll through Dam Square, Oosterpark, or Vondelpark and dance into the clubs ROXY or the Church. Along the actual choir gallery and through the nave, we eventually get to explore the future of “liberal fashion in Amsterdam”. Thus, different designers “share their vision on freedom and fashion in the future, each eager to bring about change.” Especially interesting in this regard are the questions asked within this context: “How real is our digital identity actually? And which freedoms can we afford this way?”

Haute Couture at the De Nieuwe Kerk. Photography by author, March 08, 2022.

The lavishly staged Amsterdam Catwalk in the first room presents among others: Puck & Hans, Iris van Herpen, Daily Paper, Fong Leng or Duran Lantink. Visitors bear witness to the designers experimenting with shapes, textiles, and colours: breaking the expected perception of fashion and gender while creating not only gowns but statements. Lantink, for instance, is the creater of what are the most talked-about wavy pink pants, also known as vagina trousers, that Janelle Monáe wore in her music video Pynk in 2018.

It gets less exciting, when we further navigate the ocean of information that we are bombarded with, hopping form theme-island to theme-island, when we continue. Nonetheless, two things stand out that undeniably are ‘the real Amsterdam’: Denim and the extravagant club scene.

Jeans are for everyone - boy, girl or whoever you want to be. They are protest, workwear, rebellion, freedom youth, sustainability, innovation, and streetwear. Therefore, they are Amsterdam and Amsterdam is therefore the “denim capital of the world”. Cora Kemperman says: “Denim, for us, was freedom. We didn’t need to be clean and neat and tidy.” While we see some individual creations and the back then newly introduced platform heel, we can’t feel Cora’s excitement. It is just clothes on mannikins on a podium and in the background, there is the national ballet dancing in a G-Star Raw collection. Beautiful, but oh so well mannered.

“Amsterdam’s nightlife is essential for developing your identity. It is a driving force that ensures diversity. [...]”
– Anyouk Tan (Fashion journalist)

The other thing that sticks out is the House Music (fashion) revolution and gay scene. It promised the turning point into a new era of cheerful prospects for the future: Dressing (up) without the limits of gender. The niche unleashed the potential to revolutionize the societies’ need to confess to a gender and thus a sexuality. Hence, wearable stereotypes, such as high heels are only to be worn bey women, cracked open. The performance of gender, using bodies and voices in an unconventional way, was yet to sail to new shores. Have we arrived? I doubt it.

Dear readers, get your spectacles ready because we are far off course! We have been drifting at sea so comfortably, but we lost the wind in our sails. Where are the booming beats of house music? Where are the flickering lights dancing on the glittering clothes?

“If something catches on in Amsterdam, you know that in a year’s time it will be a trend throughout the rest of Europe.”
– Adriano Goldschmied, 2014 (Fashion designer)

Overall, the exhibition presents many milestones that have been reached through fashion in the past 250 years, possibly peaking at the end of the last century, when creativity ruled. And even if they are some glimpses into the future of fashion, of course especially determined by technology, a new revolution seems unlikely. Even more so, as the exhibition leaves you as empty as the old, displayed garments. Moreover, the clothes are overly musealized due to the old walls of the church. Visitors are encouraged to marvel, perhaps even to worship the fashion on display, but not to create something of their own. Political context is completely lacking, yet it would be helpful to explain how fashion is really capable of changing habits, structures, and beliefs.

“MAISON AMSTERDAM” is just yet another example why our gendered consumption still is king (quite like the customers themselves). The exhibition is a neatly rehearsed performance that once again turns us into silent observers. Perhaps I would have wished for a bit more spectacle and experience instead of only “window shopping” alongside all the, indeed valuable, background information. Despite my hopes and its promises, “MAISON AMSTERDAM” does not spark a fire within me, but let’s me get back to my Instagram feed, quite unimpressed and uninspired.