yarn unit
modern minimalistic: refined fashion essentials made with love and attention to detail
brief
in july 2006 wig anthology (an agency with mainly scandinavian brands of
jan everard wiggelinkhuizen) introduces a new dutch brand with international allure: yarn unit
by january 2011 the new strong yarn unit man collection will be in stores
the yarn unit | yarn unit man collection is designed by the frenchman stéphane barbier. the past 15 years he has worked as a fashion designer for luxury ready-to-wear labels such as rochas and emanuel ungaro in paris, and then brands like turnover and tommy hilfiger in amsterdam.
he studied art and fashion in paris, and draws inspiration from
painting, video art, film and people around him.
yarn unit collections are designed with the best italian yarns and luxurious jerseys. this results in an optimistic, contemporary knits and jersey collection
the collection has a sensual or sturdy minimalistic style by applying sophisticated details, patterns, colours and modern techniques
the core values are: beauty, clarity and purity
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the strength of simplicity
yarn unit: five years
a compact collection of striking, elegantly fashionable knits and jerseys: this is yarn unit. the brand selects the best yarns, mostly italian, and uses them in the design of strong, modern garments with well-thought-out details and surprising constructions and volumes. the high-grade quality of both yarn and design make yarn unit clothes timeless and durable; they last much longer than just one season. which means that the brand is meeting an important need. after all, what is fashion in 2011? what do we ask of a brand today? we no longer slavishly follow the latest trends. the need to transform ourselves into an ideal served up by famous international brands has also mostly disappeared. increasingly, fashion consumers are simply looking for a good product: for clothes that are beautiful, or made in a special way; for clothes that flatter the body, and are comfortable to wear. yarn unit is meeting this need. “as dutch writer ronald giphart said: an ideal woman is a happy woman,” quotes founder and managing director jan everard wiggelinkhuizen, and the saying fits the brand perfectly.
a local treasure: small for good reason
twice a year yarn unit brings a small collection, with just sixty womens’s styles, onto the market. there is good reason for this: it means that shop owners and customers can make a specific choice. the designs are not directed towards a given target group, and the clothes are as easy to combine with everyday wear as they are with expensive, high-end designer brands. the result is that the brand is sold in very different kinds of shops. their perfect wearing comfort, flattering proportions, and subtle colours ensure that these clothes suit almost any woman and any wardrobe.
yarn unit has no desire to become a large brand with a complete clothing line, because the focus is on making one good product – highly classified, for a reasonable price – whose hallmarks are timelessness and quality. “we were small when we started out, five years ago,” explains jan everard wiggelinkhuizen. “and we want to stay that way. you have to go to a bit of trouble to find us. tucked away around the corner from the main shopping street, or on page 20 of google, so to speak. we want to turn that into our strength. we don’t follow new fashion trends, and with only two collections a year (in january and july) we can’t, because a copy has to be in the shops within six weeks of its launch. so we don’t even try to follow trends. we gain our customer loyalty through our other qualities. we get regular calls from fans visiting amsterdam who want to know where our own shop is. we get compliments, too, and fans come to the outlet to find something from a previous collection. this kind of attention has encouraged us to carry on expanding yarn unit, but in a modest way – not through classic marketing campaigns, but for instance by making the best possible use of the internet, and by opening an e-shop. this creates a very personal kind of customer loyalty – and a flagship store, an idea we’re considering at the moment, would strengthen that too.” step by step, yarn unit is building a unique, organic, and authentic identity. 2010 saw the launch of a men’s line and an e-shop.
the yarn unit universe contains not just the clothes, but also includes other interesting, artisan, or unique products with a similar mentality; for instance, framed drawings by dutch illustration artist petra lunenburg, ceramics, and handsome leather bags are currently available in the e-shop. french-born stéphane barbier, who has designed the men’s and women’s lines since 2010, also finds this broader context an interesting one; besides designing for yarn unit, he makes films and other visual artwork.
emotional value and storytelling
“knits and jerseys are intimate garments; you often wear them next to the skin, and their elasticity lets them move with you, so i think it’s very important that they don’t force themselves on you, but adapt to you, and – slowly but surely – fully belong to you,” mark van vorstenbos has said. he was the designer behind yarn unit in its first four years, and even then he was emphasizing the importance of the emotional value concealed within an article of clothing. after van vorstenbos left in 2009 wiggelinkhuizen took on stéphane barbier, who continued to develop the brand and started its men’s line, yarn unit man. barbier: “knitwear and jersey are so interesting nowadays. they can be casual and luxurious and you can do a lot of different things with both.” under barbier, who had worked for rochas, ungaro, turnover and hilfiger, the collection has continued to slowly evolve: “for me yarn unit is more about drapery, shape and a feminine touch.” besides a more feminine look, he has brought a clear storyline into the product. the artist – fall 2011, for instance, was inspired by ‘the artist’s life’. barbier had noticed that in atelier photographs, the artist often wore a pullover. “the image of the artist posing in his studio, dressed in paint-covered trousers and a black roll-neck sweater, is part of our collective photographic vocabulary. for many decades, and till today, from karel appel to angus fairhurst, pictures of male artists often reveal a plethora of diversely specific knitwear, every single item seemingly picked and worn over and over for practical reasons or sentimental attachment.” he incorporates these specific wearing experiences and artists’ emotions in his designs. at the moment he is experimenting with knitted jewellery, in a series which brings a more poetic dimension to light.
from the very beginning yarn unit has used photography as the most important means of communicating the atmosphere, context, and emotion of its clothes. the first four collections were photographed by annemarieke van drimmelen, a young photographer who brought a fresh vision to the new brand. the next two collections were photographed by anuschka blommers and niels schumm, who focused more on the form, construction, and materiality of the collection. for the harvest moon – fall 2009 collection, the texture and the layered expression of the clothes was given centre stage: the human body disappeared entirely. when storytelling became important with barbier’s arrival, photographer miep jukkema succeeded in staging the atmosphere of splendor in the grass – spring 2010, which referred to natalie wood, sue lyon and the pop culture of the 1960s, in a most intriguing way.
craftsmanship and tacit knowledge
jan everard wiggelinkhuizen began his wholesale career in the veldhoven group, including work for sandwich man / under cover. for turnover he worked in sales for 11 years, with marian wigger. in 2001 he started his own agency, wig anthology, with mostly scandinavian brands. he had expected these far-northern european brands to have a strong line in warm knits, but he quickly discovered that they carried none whatsoever. knitwear was a strong part of turnover, however, and one that had always sold well. in 2005 he decided to fill the gap in the market for himself by starting a knitwear collection for wig anthology. right from the start wiggelinkhuizen was looking for long-term collaboration. “i wanted to be sure that before i started, not only did i have a good designer, but i also had close working relationships with good yarn suppliers and manufacturers.” the best yarn manufacturers were sought in italy. for jersey treatments he found a factory in portugal that wanted to invest in a good product. knitwear manufacture was finally arranged in china, where intensive work – hand-made pieces continuously being sent to and fro – was done on making high-quality knits. “quality and focus in a product is something you build together, and keep pushing to a higher level,” explains wiggelinkhuizen. “you work together to make it a second nature.” richard sennet’s popular book the craftsman describes this form of craftsmanship, acquired gradually, through the hands, in the course of actual practice, as ‘tacit knowledge’, and this is the direction yarn unit is pointed. the company’s small-scale, artisan working methods suit barbier perfectly: “it is not a copy-paste job here. the wonderful thing is that you can do so many things yourself because the structure is so small. it’s really addictive, and that’s good. most companies don’t work this way.”
josé teunissen holds a professorship in fashion theory at artez institute of the arts. she is visiting professor at the university of the arts in london and works as a freelance curator and writer.
