If the Patchwork Family ever felt like organised chaos at its most charming, Family Business International (or FBI, yes, really) is what happens when that energy grows sharper teeth. The new creative agency formalises years of side hustles, inside jokes and quietly executed projects that lived alongside the Patchwork Family’s community-driven universe, operating somewhere between a high-end production house and a creative special ops unit. Born out of necessity rather than ambition, FBI is a strategic response to an industry that demands both idealism and sustainability. We sat down with founders Meike and Marco to talk accidental naming moments, creative survival, and why sometimes the most serious ideas are born with a wink.
AFW: FBI I love it, who’s brilliant idea was that? And in what state were they when they came up with it?
Meike: Surprisingly, we were all sober. We had a big brainstorming session with Kees de Klein, the photographer and graphic designer behind most of our work. We felt very strongly about the words Family Business and had already decided that had to be part of the name. Every secret commercial project we did alongside the Patchwork Family already carried the name Family Business project. For the Patchwork Family we have a funny email address: @patchwork.family, @family.business however was extremely expensive to get and so we browsed some other suggestions and found @familybusiness.international. When Kees realised what that would mean as an abbreviation, he suddenly screamed through the microphone: “FBI!” and that was it. We immediately fell in love.
AFW: When I first found out about the name I thought to myself: they are all taking the piss.
Marco: I still remember my mum and brother looking at me in the living room like, what the fuck is going on? Because I was laughing so hard at this name…
Meike: We also send fashion police memes to each other all the time. The name really reflects our personalities. It is just perfect.
AFW: The Patchwork Family was your first big creation, and FBI is the next chapter. Does launching a second venture feel easier this time around, or does it come with a whole new set of growing pains?
Meike: It really grew out of necessity. Along the way we got so many new projects and opportunities that did not quite fit within the Patchwork Family model. We started doing them on the side, but it became confusing. How do you communicate about these projects, and where can people find them? Structuring them under a different name just made sense.
AFW: So the opportunities came first, and the structure followed?
Marco: Exactly. FBI is a deliberate step towards commercialisation, partly to protect the Patchwork Family’s integrity and partly to survive in an industry that does, quite simply, require money, especially when you work with a community of young designers. We did not want to dilute the Patchwork Family in any way.
With the Patchwork Family, we created something hyper idealistic with real meaning within the fashion industry, but it will always be difficult to make it economically viable without funding. FBI became a strategy to create stability and to keep the Patchwork Family what it is, without having to commercialise it. To come back to your question, it does feel like it is as hard to stomp FBI out of the ground than it was with the Patchwork Family. It is a whole different world and client base. It’s a different approach than working with Paradiso or Club Church.
Meike: The Patchwork Family community is very forgiving, and our connection to it feels intimate. With FBI, it is the opposite. It’s high end and professional.
Marco: We started by taking on very specific jobs that traditional production companies often cannot do because they lack a certain skill or creative outlook. Because of our network, we are able to put the right people forward. Working with incredible photographers, videographers, artists and designers, combined with Meike’s experience at Dover Street Market in Paris over the past year, meant we were able to reach a professional standard quite quickly. It really came at the right moment.
AFW: FBI aims to bring together emerging talent with industry experts. Could you talk a bit about how you approach this match-making process and how much you’re involved in the end-product?
Marco: It really depends on what the project needs. We know our network extremely well and understand client expectations, so we are always trying to find the right balance. With the Patchwork Family, individual talent is championed and our role is to showcases these creative visions whilst putting forward our own work. With FBI, we are involved in every step of the way, acting more as project managers. The nice thing is that none of us work for FBI as a designer so there’s less emotional attachment.
Meike: We curate what is necessary, take charge of communication, and create a structure that individual makers often struggle to build on their own.
Marco: A good example goes back to when Meike was working at Dover Street Market. FBI takes on projects that conventional factories cannot do because of a lack of creative insight. A good example is a project for Dickies, where every garment had to be painted with wallpaper paint to create relief, then hand washed and softened. Because we all have picked up these crazy specific skills randomly along the way, we were equipped to do it. We will always find someone in our network who knows how to handle that exact creative or technical challenge. The task for FBI then becomes scaling and professionalising it. Imagine a hand wash and paint assembly line with five litre buckets for 300 garments. That, combined with our commitment to sustainability, is what FBI is about.
AFW: It helps that you have nurtured talent to grow their skillset in ways they might have not been able to do in other places and know everyone’s skillset so deeply. Patchwork productions often come with a certain chaos that forces people to take on roles they have never done before, and that seems to have built a lot of confidence in taking on challenges that others might not be up for.
Marco: Exactly. That is why I love FBI. We are creative special OPS.
AFW: The Patchwork Family has always highlighted the individuals behind the collections, the performers, the faces. With FBI, you act more as consultants, focusing on the outcome rather than the people involved. Is that shift in communication style deliberate?
Meike: Very much so. FBI is an agency that uses the skillset of the Patchwork Family, or those adjacent to it, the aunties and uncles, so to speak. We are in service of the client’s vision and identity. It is their aesthetic. That actually creates more space within Patchwork Family to lift individuals up. Different routes, same mission.
Marco: Even though the FBI name came late in the process, we really fell in love with it and with the anonymity it allows. It is the complete opposite of the Patchwork Family, which is this crazy exuberant, chaotic thing that people do not need to understand. We do not even understand it ourselves. With FBI, we want clarity. It is a sustainable creative agency with a focus on textile.
AFW: Does this new chapter mean the end of the Patchwork Family as we know it?
Meike: The Patchwork Family is always growing and evolving, but it will always be there. FBI is really there to strengthen it.
Marco: After our last Paradiso show during Amsterdam Fashion Week, it felt like everything we had done over the past three years accumulated into that moment. We have had similar cycles before, like with Family Affair, doing the same party for over 3 years. What we have always loved about the Patchwork Family is that we never fully understood what it was. We do what feels necessary in the moment, without creating expectations or competing with ourselves. We have an event coming up on 4 September with a very special guest we cannot announce yet, and this year also marks our five year anniversary. This is to say, the Patchwork Family is not going anywhere. This year is about going back to the roots, creating something new with our community, but keeping the same essence. Challenging the idea of the Patchwork Family is what excites us most.
AFW: Meanwhile, the Patchwork Family just announced its newest release: REMEMBER ME – a True Crime Fashion Mockumentary. Please tell me more..
Marco: It is a project we developed in Paris last March, so it’s been in the making for a while.
Meike: Yes, we figured, if you go to Paris Fashion Week and want to do something impactful, you either need a very very serious budget, or you fake it till you make it. That idea spiralled into this very meta film about us going to Paris and having our “breakthrough”, I won’t say anything more!
Marco: It is a satirical commentary on the toxicity of the fashion industry and how much of that still gets celebrated. It is problematic and iconic at the same time. We are upcycling fashion stereotypes, played by the cutest performers in the world.
Meike: We are releasing it later this year, so stay tuned!
