By Editor Design.nl / 03-03-2010

Once a year, the World Fashion Centre (WFC) in Amsterdam invites designers to exhibit on their 200 square meter ground-floor exhibition space. For the 2010 event, Freedom Of Creation (FOC) was invited to showcase their work. Given that this year celebrates a decade for FOC in design, the exhibition provides an overview of the last decade of innovation in 3D printed design.

Beyond Freedom Of Creation’s own designs and productions – including solutions for furnishing, lighting, communication devices, personal and interior accessories – the exhibition at Amsterdam’s WFC also presents commissioned projects and products conceived by FOC for global companies such as Tiger/Asics, Heineken, Philips, L’Oreal and for emerging dynamic brands such as Feadship, Bijenkorf and FreshFiber. Favourites include trinkets from Ted Noten's series 'Haunted by 36 Women.'

During the opening, a 3D printer from Stratasys produced a 'live' range of fashion accessories conceived by Dutch designer Victor de Bie and optimized by FOC for direct manufacturing. The 'Black Box' consists of a ring with three exchangeable iconics hats; a Crown, a Paper Hat and Mickey Mouse Ears. The setting, a King with his subjects standing on a pedestal, could pretty well be representing a silhouette of a scene out one of Victor de Bie's paintings. Unlike the black box in aviation terms this mysterious box literally is black, the most timeless colour in fashion. The box combines the best of three worlds, fashion, creativity and technology. The 'Black Box' was produced in a limited edition of 75.

The Freedom Of Creation concept is based on a graduation project executed by Janne Kyttänen at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam 1999-2000. This project examined the possibilities of using 3D printing technology and Augmented Reality as viable technologies when changing production and distribution logistics on global scale. After the graduation exhibition, Freedom Of Creation, was established in Helsinki, Finland 2000. Freedom Of Creation in Amsterdam was established in 2006.

If there was one product there that FOC would show someone who didn't know their work, what would it be and why? "The dress: still amazing to see that such a piece of fashion can come out of a machine in one go. It makes you think about all possibilities out there," says Michiel Dekkers from FOC.

FOC at World Fashion Centre
22 February until 5 March 2010
Koningin Wilhelminaplein 13, 1062 HH Amsterdam

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