Studio PMS is officially launched at Dress-X. We interviewed the brand's team - Suzanne Mulder, Merle Kroezen & Puck Martens - to discover more about their collection and give a fresh eye on the digital fashion.
Tell us briefly about the brand.
Studio PMS is a Utrecht fashion collective that is open to experiment and discover new opportunities for digital fashion development. Our handwriting can be seen in distinct shapes, eclectic prints, and rich, textured materials. We aim to find inspiration from fabrics like taffeta silk, thick grain leather, and satin woven viscose.
You often speak on how digitalized clothes are becoming more and more humane in our daily lives. How does that reflect in your collection?
When we are constantly overwhelmed with artificial stimulation, we hardly have a room and eye for the reality of the present. Finding the right balance between artificial stimuli and creative authentic stimuli from the inside and give ourselves the space for an actual experience - is quite a challenge in today’s society. We started to wonder why the viewer had minimal control over how and even what they observed. How do we change that? How can we make an interactive digital fashion experience, that seeks interaction with the physical space? In our work, Studio PMS has often looked for innovative and alternative ways of communicating fashion. In addition to the still-dominant overproduction, we strive for a fashion industry that is less hierarchical, conservative, and especially less passive towards its audience. This idea resulted in Apparellel Existence, an augmented reality installation developed in partnership with Frame and Bolon for Dutch Design Week 2019.
The idea is thrilling. How do participants interact with the collection?
Using the Android and Apple-compatible Studio PMS app, participants are invited to individually or collectively experience three unique digital realms. After choosing a single environment one can interact with space by walking, crawling, or sitting. In these AR worlds – designed in collaboration with Studio Attach – a spectator’s preference is of large importance. By presenting the participants with options to choose how they perceive and position themselves within each realm, Apparellel Existence illustrates how digitization is becoming integrated into our everyday routine. We demonstrate the value each dimension – virtual and physical – has in expressing design. Both are relevant today: one cannot exist without the other.
Which brands have you already cooperated with?
We have already designed for Nike, Adidas, Burberry, Zara. For example, we collaborated with Burberry and Hypebeast to showcase Burberry Monogram styling with 3D technology. While collaborating with Adidas and Hypebest at Studio PMS, we created the campaign to promote the new Adidas originals OZWEEGO for the Chinese market. The commercial featured a cast of C-pop idol Jackson Lee, Japanese influencer Lala Takahashi, and rapper-producer Dough-Boy.
How do you estimate the future of the digital fashion industry?
We are continuously looking for innovative and sustainable ways to communicate fashion. We strive for an industry that is less hierarchical, conservative, and passive to its audience. Our main goal is to try to bridge the gap between the physical and the virtual. By adding our collection to Dress-X, we truly believe we're entering a new generation of fashion.
