Saturday, January 22, 2011

Sjaak Hullekes : History and Philosophy of the Designer

In his collections Sjaak Hullekes plays with the fragility of the male, his behaviors and modern times. How to escape from daily cares, and create your own, romanticized, life. What is it that makes a man feel good about what he is wearing? For Sjaak Hullekes it means focusing on what is important, what is efficient, well made and what at the same time has a refined sense of style. The label brings you, every season, wearable clothing to be worn by a contemporary man; a modern dandy...

Men’s wear designer Sjaak Hullekes was born in the small town Zierikzee, The Netherlands, on the 8th of October 1981. He grew up there and went on to Arnhem to study fashion design at the ArtEZ institute for Arts and Design. He graduated in 2005 during the first Arnhem Fashion Biennale, from an academy widely known for earlier graduates like Alexander van Slobbe, Lucas Ossendrijver (Lanvin) and Viktor & Rolf.

After his graduation he founded his company ‘Arnheim Fashion’ together with his life partner and ex-classmate Sebastiaan Kramer (1985). Since January 2006 they both free-lanced for several (fashion) companies to get started in the fashion industry. Since then they have been working for Alexander van Slobbe, Christophe Molet, Tommy Hilfiger, Elle pret-a-porter, State-of-art and many more companies.

One year after they founded Arnheim Fashion together (January 2007), they introduced their men’s wear label ‘Sjaak Hullekes’ during the Amsterdam International Fashion Week. Sjaak Hullekes as being the creative director and designer, Sebastiaan Kramer as being the label’s managing director.

During the Milan and Paris men’s fashion week, June 2008, they introduced the Sjaak Hullekes brand to the international market at the White Homme and Rendez-vous Homme showrooms, which they continued during the next fashion week. Since last season on Sjaak Hullekes is represented during the Paris fashion week at Tranoi Homme.

November 2009, Sjaak won the Mercedes-Benz Dutch Fashion Award 2009. An International jury consisting important people from the fashion industry thought of Sjaak Hullekes being the best Dutch designer to take part of the international fashion industry.

The Sjaak Hullekes collections are mainly made at appreciated manufacturers in Belgium and the Netherlands, to guarantee precise knowledge and workmanship to the customer.

Check out the look book here.

Photo & text Copyright Sjaak Hullekes, Courtesy Pressing Online.