Success Stories

As of Nū, Karmen Samson

Karmen Samson is a fashion researcher and practitioner. She comes from a small Dutch village but studied in Amsterdam where she did a bachelor in Fashion and Branding at the Amsterdam Fashion Institution and graduated in 2016. She then did a master in Fashion Strategy at ArtEZ University of Arts in Arnhem and graduated cum laude in 2019. The same year, she founded her research practice called As of Nū where she explores “the current distribution of the new within fashion” by creating a dialogue between the consumer and the designer.

Karmen wishes to devote herself more to fashion research and in particular, on sustainability. She wants to explore the urge to buy new items that is the basis of the fashion system and prevents from an evolution towards durable development. “As long as the fashion system’s created desire for the new exists, sustainable fashion will never be fully realised. That is why I think it is important to question where this enormous urge for the new originated. How is this highly irrational desire for the new created? Why are we, as consumers, still subjected to a system that is pressuring us into playing a part in an unsustainable interaction?” Last October, she hosted a series of As of Nū workshops with the participation of young people from 15 to 25 years old. During these workshops, they could discuss the current distribution of trends and participants designed a garment using a trend they created themselves. “It creates space for the participants to claim their agency within the proposed new.”

In 2019, Karmen participated in the FASHIONCLASH Festival New Fashion Narratives exhibition that was held at Bureau Europa. She is very grateful to have been able to meet people and hear their opinions: “During the opening weekend I got the opportunity to meet a lot of like-minded people and made some interesting connections. Not only with people for the fashion field, but also fashion wearers (consumers). To hear their perspective on trends, newness and the value of the new, was for me and my practice incredibly valuable”. She also appreciated connecting with other participants about a collective theme: “I experienced a collective force of us all being invested in the development of fashion, not for the sake of the product but as a social cultural phenomenon and as an art form.”
Karmen will take part at the 13th edition of FASHIONCLASH Festival with a workshop in cooperation with iArts Maastricht.