FEMKE AGEMA’S TOTEM POLES

Recently we stumbled upon the far out totem pole-based designs of Femke Agema. The Dutch designer is a recent graduate of the Art Academy in Utrecht and now lives and works in Amsterdam, where we met up with her to find out why in the hell she thinks some people might want to dress like totem poles.

Vice: Your outfits consist of stacks of abstract shapes designed to look like totem poles, they’re not exactly small, are they?
Femke Agema: No, and we Dutch like to do everything by bike, but that would’ve been rather impossible for this collection so I had to get a van to drive the big pieces around. Although some of the outfits can be dissembled like puzzle pieces, and the constructions are actually not that heavy. After graduation I said, “OK, next time I’m doing bikinis so I won’t have to drag so much stuff around!”

You say the outfits are like pieces of a puzzle, so can they be switched from pole to pole?
No, unfortunately not. That would be really cool though because I see the whole collection as a sort of giant puzzle. My boyfriend made the supporting structure of each piece out of lightweight wood, so the poles are not near as heavy as they look.

So, why in the hell totem poles?
When I started on the Totem collection I was addicted to Facebook. I was so fascinated by this crazy thing and by the alter ego everyone has there. It’s really a happy place to be, right? Everyone is doing great, everyone looks nice and has beautiful pictures of themselves, however, you never get a complete image of someone because everything is edited. I wanted to do something with that, so I started to cut out images of people in magazines. When I put them together in a collage, I turned them upside down and something totally different appeared. The result reminded me of a totem pole because that is also cut and layered. Then I decided to use these images I’d cut out to make something in 3D, which was so much fun I decided that that would be the basis of my next collection.

This first model looks like she’s wearing a circus hat. Was it from a Facebook picture as well?
Yeah, it was actually. On the collage it was a striped skirt I found on one of the many Facebook pictures I used. I just turned it upside down and this amazing shape came out. It’s the perfect hat.

You have a much more artistic and conceptual approach to your collections than most designers. Do you consider yourself more of an artist than a fashion designer?
When people ask me this question, I just say “fashion designer.” That is a lot easier than telling them the story about me being an artist and a fashion designer at the same time, because I really like to play with the boundaries between fashion and art. However, it was not always like that. In school I started off with pretty subtle collections and when my collections started to get bigger and bigger, my teacher told me that I should really do it the other way around. Usually, designers start big and then narrow it down, but I like to do it my way. With the Totem collection I found a good balance between the conceptual collection and wearable clothes.

I really love that dress you made for the anniversary of the Dutch department store chain, Bijenkorf, out of toy animals.
Yeah, I had to cut their little bodies up with scissors and attach them to a chicken wire structure, we call it “kippengaas” in Dutch.

But you don’t only make conceptual collections, you also sell more wearable clothes.
My “real” clothes are sold at my store here in Amsterdam. It’s called Vezjun and it’s run by me and four of my friends who are also designers. You probably know Roos van der Kamp, she showed at the Amsterdam International Fashion Week last year because she won Project Runway. The others are Minke Lunter, Gabrielle Holland, and Audrey Weeren. Each of us sits in the shop once a week, which is a really convenient concept. In addition to that, my clothes are sold at the Puha in Utrecht, and from October on they will be at Fashionclash in Maastricht as well. Hellobuybye also has some of my jackets at the moment–you should check it out.

What’s the link between the clothes in Vezjun and your more abstract collections?
Well, I made these really wearable shirts with simple, graphical totem prints on them, and the leggings from my show with the vertical green and white stripes are also for sale.

Why aren’t you showing at fashion week in Amsterdam?
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the whole seasonal fashion thing. Everyone should do what they think is right for them–I’ve always wanted to go against the conventional way of doing things. Also showing at the Fashion Week in Amsterdam is really expensive. Although they offer support for young designers, it is still a lot of money. All the designers in Maastricht are freelancers and it doesn’t cost anything to show your collections there, making for a really nice atmosphere. People are passionate about being there, because they are doing it in their spare time and the models are already there–as a designer you just have to bring along the clothes you’ve designed, that’s it.

You have your own collections but you also work with other artists and for other companies, which projects do you enjoy the most?
Well, collaborations with other artists are a lot of fun. Designing my own collection is still my thing though. After graduation I felt like I had to conquer the world or something. I won the HKU award at my school with my graduation collection Hideout, so I had a nice financial backup and worked on my own things for a year. I really wanted to take my work a step further, but I put myself under so much pressure I felt like a fish out of water and didn’t knowing what I wanted. I realized good fashion designers can’t just fulfill the needs of their clients. You need to come up with something to show the people and make a statement like, “hey, I’m here!” Hopefully they’ll like it. With the Totem collection I really feel like I did exactly what I wanted to do.

STEFANIE SCHELLWIES