FW20 | Magic Mountain
For our AW20 collection entitled Magic Mountain we derived a lot of inspiration from the pre-world-war-II novel ‘Der Zauberberg’, or ‘The Magic Mountain’, by Thomas Mann. Through it, we explore the themes of self-discovery, reflection, and healing; all positive effects on our well-being which can be attributed to spending time in nature.
The idea for building this collection around a book stems for our fascination with literary storytelling, as it encourages the reader to use their imagination to the fullest, and visualise the characters, scenarios, and worlds based on the blueprint provided by the author. While our interpretation and imagination of this blueprint is reflected via our collection’s pieces, we decided to collaborate with a visual artist in order to further express the themes we derived from Mann’s work.
During our search for an artist to collaborate with we came across Amsterdam based illustrator Andrew Tseng, whose body of work is very thematic and driven by storytelling. We gave him the platform to illustrate his interpretation of the Magic Mountain, which can be seen on several printed pieces throughout the collection.
“I wanted my illustrations to contrast the harsh mountain setting in which the story takes place with the adventurous spirit and romantic view of nature that was typical of the times.”
When you decide to buy a piece of art, you often connect with its sensory quality first, but as you admire it the second time you are struck with the fascination for the inspiration, drive, and process of the person who created the piece of art you feel so drawn to. For us, it is much the same. We want you to connect to the process and story of our collections as much as to the aesthetics of them. With the release of the collection approaching, we visited Andrew at his studio in Utrecht in order to tell you his story, discover his process, and find out what the collaboration was like for him.
Read the full interview HERE.