Freshly graduated from the Man & Identity department of the Design Academy Eindhoven, Bart Hess received the Mini Young Designer Award (sponsored by the car manufacturer) at the Dutch Design Awards. ‘Yeah, that was really great. Unfortunately, I had to give back the car when the year was out. Driving a Nissan Micra took some getting used to after that,’ he laughs. Hess comes across as a highly confident optimist. ‘I had my first breakthrough when I was still in school, when Lady Gaga’s stylist selected my Slime Outfit for the cover of Born This Way (2011).’ After the recognition at the Dutch Design Awards came a fellowship at the London Fashion College and an exhibition in Rijksmuseum Twente. ‘And now I’ve already had the pleasure of working in this studio for a year. I don’t call myself a designer anymore, because I don’t think in products. And I use various different media as well – photography, animation – that each contribute equally to the artistic process. But of course I essentially focus on materials and on finding new forms of expression. Though they seem bizarre or strange sometimes, almost science fiction-like, they’re really very close to nature, like skin and bones’

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