TOPSY TURVY SPIJKERS

Leave it to the sisters Spijkers to close the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Amsterdam in style. They shared some makeup before the show as is their ritual. Call it superstition, but Truus and Riet always do this. Last time it was the same lipstick, this time the same eye pencil just had to be used. One of them asks a makeup artist to do her makeup whilst the other does it herself. “I’m better at it anyway, haha, I’m more precise”. Backstage the thirteen year old dog sniffs between the black curtains. It’s not scared by excited models and busy PR ladies, it’s used to the fashion week commotion.

The models are ready for take off. They are pepped up by coach Kim Vos. “Add  bit of pepper, we like that” the sisters joke. And then the lights in the room dim. The front row is well stocked. We see Karin Swerink, Winonah de Jong, Harriet Calo, Sunny Bergman, Marianne Verkerk, and many, many, many vips that want to take in the last bit of fashion week. Their favourite illustrator Martina Johanna’s illustrations are projected on the runway, it starts to move, and the music (composed by Joost van Bellen) starts. We smell Jules Verne and we’re taken on a journey across the world. We taste an easily traveled, happy world because through mind travelling we’re in New York in a second, and it only takes a sigh to arrive in Tokyo. The nebular theme comes back in the clothing, in the prints and in the lines we see all around. I fell in love with the top and skirt that had flowers processed in them. Especially the soft pink already takes me to, say, campo die fiori in Rome.

There comes the applause, the invitees rush towards the bar. Truus and Riet can finally have a good drink. Some champagne and red wine, please. If anyone deserves it, it’s most definitely the sisters Spijkers.