STAGE FOR DESIGN TALENT OF THE FUTURE
Shown will be projects by artists in residence Marko Baković (from Jan. 23), Michel Gallus and Brandon Chow, the work of second-year Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) students and second-year students from the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Hague.
(* DAE and KABK have been collaborating with the Shoe Quarter since 2023 as a workshop for students to learn knowledge and skills and for design implementation).
ABOUT MARKO BAKOVIĆ:
Marko Baković holds a master's degree in shoedesign from the London College of Fashion. After graduation, he founded Baković Studio, an innovative and research-oriented design studio. Under this name, he has designed shoe collections for leading fashion brands such as Stefan Cooke, Dion Lee, Peter Do and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy. In addition to his work as a freelance shoe consultant, he is also working to build his own brand.
Baković presents two parts of his work at the Bodehuisje: first, a survey of collaborations with KNWLS, Dion Lee and more, from January to March. From March to April, he presents Artefacts - sculptural works that challenge the boundary between design and art, process and result. These objects, some made with the volunteers of the Shoe Quarter, form the basis for his SS25 shoe collection.
The process of experimentation and transformation is central, with the artifacts defining the design language for the final shoe collection.
ABOUT MICHEL GALLUS:
Michel Gallus is a shoe designer who designs sneakers with modularity in mind. His project HIDE is about modular sneakers made and shaped in vegetable tanned leather. The sneakers are made without the use of a last. Separate parts make it easy to assemble and disassemble the sneakers during their lifetime.
As a basic material, Michel uses vegetable-tanned leather, chosen for properties such as durability and the ability to "shape. He also works with several unorthodox techniques for making shoes. Examples include: forming the upper directly on the foot or shaping it with a wooden or 3D printed mold. The insole is designed with structural modeling to provide stability.
ABOUT BRANDON CHOW:
Brandon is a Cantonese-Canadian designer educated in the Netherlands at the Design Academy Eindhoven. His practice is guided by a social-design vision, using writing, research and filmmaking as tools for critical inquiry.
The "Unlaced" project is a collection of essays that aim to unravel the complex nature of sneakers as seductive, inventive and destructive commodities, taking shape in a series of essays using seven shoes from Brandon's own collection as case studies. The stories reflect his personal entanglements with these sneakers and are enriched with further research and anecdotes from sneaker industry professionals to tell intimate and revealing stories.