SCHIPPER/ARQUES

Schipper/Arques are a Dutch/Spanish duo living and working in Belgium. Boris studied art, and later fashion, at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, however dropped out to start travelling and working in nightlife. Together Boris and Tomas started doing styling for music videos and various artists before they decided to start their own ready-to-wear label S/A; the idea was to design only for high to very high end private clients, but soon they were fed up with it, as they were much more interested in real fashion than in special pieces used only for one occasion. Their collections are always about contrasts, subculture influences meeting couture finishing techniques, extremely constructed pieces that shape the body versus fluid and draped clothing that follows every movement. De-saturated colours and shades hard to name, backed by black and white and colours that tend to "fight" (fuchsia and cardinal red for example) are their favourites. Emotion, technique, theme, statement and fabric are key to Schipper/Arques.