From farm to fabric to fashion: Claudy Jongstra in the UK

News item | 18-04-2024 | 10:25

The Embassy was proud to support a masterclass held by Dutch textile artist and designer Claudy Jongstra in London. Priorities of the Dutch Embassy in the UK are sustainability, circularity, and cultural collaborations – and Jongstra’s work and ethos exhibit all of these elements.

Inspiring Masterclass for students of regenerative and biodesign and fashion

The Masterclass aimed to inspire MA students of fashion and regenerative/biodesign from Central Saint Martins and London College of Art in the ways Studio Claudy Jongstra works with biodynamic fabrics and natural dyes.
 
Claudy Jongstra and her team at Studio Claudy Jongstra have developed a biodynamic approach to wool. With their work they build on a tradition of the textile and wool industry in the Netherlands, researching and using the craft and the recipes used in the 17th Century to dye wool – tacit knowledge that otherwise risks being lost. Sharing this knowledge is a key part of their work.

A large table was covered in wool of different colours and thicknesses next to samples of the plants and organic materials from which the natural dyes are made. After the introduction by Claudy Jongstra, we worked with the wool using spinning tools and carton weaving panels. It was great to see the participants inspired by the artist’s story about the materials she uses and the whole creative process – from the sheep, the wool, the crops selected to grow plants for the natural dyes to the woollen fabrics and the final art and design pieces.

Art meets sustainability: celebrating a special collaboration

After the Masterclass, Studio Claudy Jongstra's exclusive collaboration with Bankside Hotel was celebrated. 

In his opening remarks, Dutch Ambassador Karel van Oosterom commented on the connections he saw made between art and sustainability, art and hospitality, and art and diplomacy, as well as between the Netherlands and the UK as North Sea Neighbours.

This collaboration introduces two pieces to the Bankside Hotel Art Yard Bar and Restaurant. The immersive, semi-transparent wool-felt canvases Washed Ashore and Lost Found are inspired by the life and colours of the Thames. Merging art with sustainability, they are made from non-toxic materials: wool sourced from Drenthe Heath Sheep and merino from La Dehesa farm, and natural dyes. The collaboration further weaves the ethos of sustainability into the fabric of the hotel with the UK debut of the biodynamic LOADS Collection in the hotel’s luxury suites, as well as an wool felt tapestries for the upcoming sustainability exhibition in the hotel’s own White Box gallery space.