Fashion designer Ronald van der Kemp

How fashion designer Ronald van der Kemp makes the world a better place

What if there was a simple way to make the fashion industry more sustainable and eventually to reduce all related waste? Fashion designer Ronald van der Kemp seems to have figured it out, and it’s pretty genius. However, he still is an exception in his field. Read everything about Van Der Kemp, his designer label RVDK and his inspiring view on fashion below.

Cover photo: © Ronald van der Kemp, RVDK

Fashion designer Ronald van der Kemp

Fashion designer Ronald van der Kemp has an interesting career. He’s worked for big fashion houses such as Céline (under direction of Michael Kors), Escada and Wolford. Despite his success, there was something missing. Ronald van der Kemp felt he had to find other ways to express his creativity and his passion for fashion. Therefore, he collected many fabrics and other materials and started to “make beautiful clothes”. Neither with a set plan, nor with a theme or collection in mind.

 

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The most liberating part of his new ‘project’ was that he didn’t have to work according to the strict rules of the fashion industry. Now Ronald creates just a few demi-couture collections a year, entirely made from leftover fabrics, which he usually buys at big fashion houses. It totally fits his view on fashion, namely that “no one needs that many clothes [as are produced nowadays]. On top of this, they should be made for a reason and rather than be disposable items.”

 

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The birth of RVDK

Since a couple of years, the Dutch fashion designer owns his own studio in the centre of Amsterdam. Soon after he started to work on his own, he created a complete wardrobe with unique pieces and felt that he needed to share this collection with others. And so it happened: he went to Paris to present his ‘collection’, where Fédération de la Houte Couture et de la Mode asked him to set up a fashion show. The rest is history. Since then, Ronald van der Kemp became front-page material within the fashion scene and RVDK was born.

 

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Making the imperfections count

Because fashion designer Ronald van der Kemp solely follows his own rules and restrictions, every form of appreciation hits him deeply. He gets euphoric about the fact that his way of working slowly seems to gain support within the fashion industry.
With his demi-couture line RVDK he creates ‘individual pieces with a soul’. This means that every item has imperfections, but is yet elegant and has a certain form of looseness. And that’s exactly what marks Van Der Kemp’s pieces. No big quantities of one single garment, but rather unique pieces made in small runs.

 

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Sustainability

Van Der Kemp uses for his label RVDK solely vintage or second hand fabrics and other materials, usually bought at big fashion houses or as leftovers at other instances. With this way of working, he wants to shed light on the huge amount of wastage in the fashion industry. According to the fashion designer, it goes further than just the raw materials. He gets mad when hearing about big couture houses such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton, who let the fashion crowd travel around the world for shows of just 10 minutes. He simply doesn’t understand why people would do such things and – on top of that – what you should do with all those clothes. For Van Der Kemp, this remains a mystery.

 

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Een bericht gedeeld door RVDK (@ronaldvanderkemp) op

We can only applaud the initiatives and way of working of this inspiring man. We hope that his ideals will make other big players in the market will take Ronald van der Kemp as an example. Needless to say, the world will become a better place – eventually.

@ronaldvanderkemp

www.ronaldvanderkemp.com

Quite nice, don’t you think? Just like the inspiring story of fashion designer Ronald van der Kemp, we have many more inspiring fashion articles. Check out our section dedicated to designers here. Or check out our entire fashion section. We bet you’ll like it!

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