Steven Visser

Collection: A Gentlemen's Thing

Design vision

A close look at today’s street wear tells me fashionable young men mirror the efforts regarding self presentation to that of the gentleman who once was. Elements of the outfit of the fashion conscious gentleman included a variety of accessories. These where functional products but mostly worn for a stylish appearance. His attention to details made him a personality. For today’s stylish young men I focused on a range of iconic gentlemen’s accessories. My approach voices the world of rational males, with an ambition to build and achieve, firmness and down to earth sobriety. I show how my products are constructed, giving construction a decorative spin.

Born: 1985 Groningen NL

Steven was an intern at Frank Tjepkema (Tjep) and Martijn Homan (Labelh)

Contact and information:

info@steven-visser.nl
www.steven-visser.nl

Research and Inspiration

Taking the nineteenth century gentleman as a point of reference is not a matter of nostalgia. My reasons for doing so are conceptual. A nineteenth century gentleman’s outfit consisted out of items whose forms and function were standardized.  But how then did these items express the individuality, the taste and the social status of its owner? How could they play a role into what Germans call ‘Selbstdarstellung’? All these human ambitions were seemingly masked by the obvious standardize functionality of what a gentleman was wearing, yet, at the same time, expressing them by their fine details. This play of masking by function and standards and expressing by details is what fascinates me. In designing my accessories - cane, pipe, suspenders, spectacles and pocket watch - I take their conventional function and construction for granted.  The big challenge is to express their functionality and construction into details that make these items unique, tasteful, intelligent and beautiful. Research to me means making. Making is thinking. I hardly ever sketch. My research is a time consuming work of making samples, trying out all kinds of materials and techniques. In this you might call my way of working or researching that of an artisan.