The Dutch fashion scene has known some successful creatives in the past, but it still has a lot of talent today which is not immediately acknowledged as so. Reason enough for Martijn Nekoui, student at Amsterdam Fashion Institute, to combine these into a multidisciplinary exhibition called MOAM. Twelve historic highlights in fashion, design, photography, illustration, journalism and so on are being interpreted by various contemporary photographers, designers and so on. We had a quick chat with Martijn Nekoui about his graduation project.

BLEND\: You are a 23 years old, graduating branding student. For this project you have managed to get some huge names to participate for your exhibition. How did you do that?
Martijn: I knew from the beginning that for my graduation I would get a lot of freedom. MOAM has always been in the back of my head and when I started working on it, I figured out I had everything in mind already. Because I was 200% behind my plan, so I immediately started approaching people who would be interesting for the exhibition. Because of my enthusiasm and drive, I could really convince them to join. Everybody thought it was a really strong concept.

What was your inspiration for this exhibition?
In other cities, like London, Berlin and Antwerp, there are a lot of exhibitions where they promote their national designers. For example MoMu in Antwerp; they have a lot of exhibitions with Kris van Assche, Walter van Beirendonck, Martin Margiela, all national fashion designers. We never have a similar exhibition, as if we are not really proud of our fashion history and contemporary fashion talents.

The people don’t know how big the talent is here. It is often said that Holland is not a fashion country. People know the name Viktor&Rolf, but are only familiar with commercial brands like Mexx and Scotch&Soda. While we actually had and have a lot of great, unique talent!

For example Constance Wibaut, she was one of the five illustrators that was allowed to illustrate all international fashion shows. Puck & Hans who were the first to sell Jean Paul Gaultier in the Netherlands and Mac & Maggie who translated fashion from the catwalk into a mainstream line with shops in over 90 countries, long before the H&M and Zara popped up.

What is your personal highlight for this project?
Initially I thought that getting Viktor&Rolf to participate was the biggest succes I had. But when the list of all participants was ready and I sent out the press release, I realized that everything together is a highlight. They are all great names in what they do, the location is perfect, the date is set. Everybody thought I wasn’t going to succeed, but here it is! The highlight is that I reached my goal and that I have a great list of participants to exhibit.

After your graduation, what are your plans for the future?
I have always wanted to do something combining fashion and art, and presenting this to a big audience. But whether this will be with MOAM or another fashion event, I don’t know. Time will tell!’

MOAM will feature the following talents:

Avenue – Frans Ankoné translated by Sonny Groo and Marco van Rijt
Constance Wibaut translated by Georgette Koning
Ellis Faas translated by Inglot Cosmetics
Frans Molenaar translated by Jan Boelo
Fong Leng translated by MaryMe-JimmyPaul
Linda Spierings translated by Marte van Haaster
Marte Röling translated by Martine Johanna
Mathilde Willink translated by Aynouk Tan ft Pinar&Viola
Paul Huf translated by Petrovsky & Ramone
Puck & Hans translated by Nelleke Strijkers en Wouter Vandenbrink
Viktor & Rolf translated by Winde Rienstra
..with iconic items of Mac & Maggie and G-Star

The grand opening will take place on Thursday the 14th of June. The exhibition runs through Saturday the 30th of June (Thursday – Saturday 14:00 – 18:00) at Gallery Fontana Fortuna on the Keizersgracht 105, Amsterdam. Alongside MOAM, the Fontana Fortuna is also exhibiting ‘The Ruins of Detroit’ by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre.