It’s been a while since we sat down with the team behind The New Originals. Their success however hasn’t slowed down, continuously releasing new collaborations and popping up at every fashion, art and music event in Amsterdam. As the Inner Space campaign for their new FW22 collection: Inside Out has just been released, we caught up with the brand for a talk about their core values, the scene in which they operate, and the concept behind their new collection.
TNO has been a name synonymous with creativity since 2015, delving into a multitude of disciplines, including music and fashion. Rooted and ever-growing in Amsterdam, how has the cultural landscape in the city changed since you first started?
Amsterdam is our harbour in terms of creativity. We are only an hour away from London, Berlin, Paris; all the major cities with a rich creative culture, so we have a lot of valuable traffic coming our way. TNO emerged from brands like Patta, Filling Pieces and Daily Paper; those brands have really shaped us and almost paved the way. But the labels that belong to a previous generation of Dutch creativity, such as Denham, G-star, and Scotch & Soda have already shown that as a brand coming from a small place, you can make a lot of noise. Social media and the internet have also changed the way we communicate, ensuring a sort of extra catapult to tell your story.
TNO has always been represented by the 9 dot-logo, a symbol for thinking outside the box, with the new FW22 collection representing traveling to the world within us, how does this translate into the design of the clothing?
For our FW22 collection, we tried to play with round shapes and movement. Constantly traveling ourselves, we had to think about the designated place at Schiphol where you go through security and take your luggage off the conveyor belt. As soon as you enter that space, you notice that everything has round shapes that convey a certain kind of functionality, so we tried to implement those shapes and the movements they make in the collection. In addition to this, we always try to dive into our inner selves to give a fictitious swing to things.
For the FW22 collection: Inside Out, you’ve released both a video campaign as well as an editorial. Can you tell me something about the look and feel of the video campaign?
Through the video campaign, we tried to offer a platform for other creatives. We always strive to collaborate with other directors, creators, and photographers when working on new projects. Everyone has their own story and we try to provide space for it. Therefore, every piece of work you see in the video stems from the vision of the creators we work with. This adds a new layer to our already existing collection concept.
For the editorial “Inner Space” you worked together with stylist Lisa Anne Stuyfzand and creative director Iris Haverkamp Begemann. Having worked with them before, what do you like about their work and how did they fit into new campaign?
What I really like about their work is that they always find a way to tell their own story within our story. They pay a lot of attention to certain types of light, positioning and frames. It’s really cool and interesting. Iris really understands us and our background and that’s why the way she translates our vision always comes across very naturally. We trust her with the curation and the people she brings forward. That’s also how we found trust in and love for the work of Lisa.
Collaborations in general are a central element within the TNO brand. Having both worked with similar brands (Filling Pieces) and commercial parties (Samsung), how important is it to work with like-minded people, and what’s the benefit/challenge of working with less obvious parties?
What we noticed is that everyone works with a different system, and you consciously or unconsciously take that with you whenever you collaborate. The systems we have learned are very different but have similarities to our own ways of working, and we try to play with that. We see every collaboration as a learning experience. Filling pieces comes with years of expertise in the footwear market, and provided us with knowledge we didn’t have since we’ve never delved into footwear. Samsung stands for innovation and technology, so this gave us the opportunity to look into textile innovation. We ended up making our own fabric together with Byborre. That was a very interesting process and in the end, we developed phone pouches, hoodies, laptop cases and tote bags. You can do so many different things with a piece of fabric, and I hope we can show even more innovation over time this way. In the end it’s not about if a brand is similar or very different, it’s about finding common ground and learning from each other’s experience and ways of working.
PHOTO CREDITS:
PHOTOGRAPHY & CREATIVE DIRECTION: @IRISHAVERKAMPBEGEMANN @CZAR_AMSTERDAM
STYLING & CREATIVE DIRECTION: @LISA_ANNE_STUYFZAND
MODELS: NATHAN & ONEISHA @VEIN.AGENCY
HAIR & MAKE-UP: ROMY LEGGER @HOUSOFORANGEAGENCY
LIGHT: JUROSTER & @LAURENSEINDHOVEN
PRODUCER: FAYETTEMONTROOS
BRAND PRODUCER @MARUWGA
PHOTO ASSISTENT: @ADAMKUSAL
STYLING ASSISTENT: JANE SCHULZE
