Fake it to Make it

Fake it to Make it

by marlies|dekkers

‘She paints her face to hide her face,’ Arthur Golden wrote in ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’. And sure enough, traditional geisha make up, with its snow white face, deep crimson lips and dramatically black eyes and brows, has the effect of a mask. Nowadays, we glorify ‘natural beauty’. Even when we use fillers and tons of make-up, the idea is that we merely ‘accentuate’ our features. The geisha however, is the anti-Kardashian. To seduce, she goes for a complete transformation.
A few years ago, I went through a huge change in my life, both personal and professional. For my upcoming fashion show, I needed a spectacular new look to express this transmutation, but I realized that in our culture, we lack (beauty-)rituals that allow us to shed our old identities. Women will cut off their hair, but that’s about it! I needed to go geisha. So we created an almost otherworldly look for me: Virgin Queen meets geisha from outer space. Think metallic lace, rhinestone eyebrows and over-the-top make up (we echoed the
way a geisha leaves a line of bare skin to emphasize the artifciality of her look). How incredibly liberating it felt to become this new person, to celebrate the new me!

Now this wasn’t exactly an everyday-look, but I still often use the transformative power of make up and hair, and Japanese beauty rituals are still my great inspiration.

Most loved
fall|winter 20 preview

Marlies Says

fall|winter 20 preview

by marlies|dekkers

In January, I presented my newest FW20 collection during a show full of dance and entertainment in Rotterdam. All my work as a feminist designer is inspired by muses, powerful female icons from past and present. And for FW20, my muse will be crime writer Agatha Christie. A few months from now, you will get to discover the collections, and see how they tell stories like Agatha’s thrilling books do..

Running for your life

MD Friends

Running for your life

by marlies|dekkers

Dr. Bram Bakker is a psychiatrist, a writer, a runner and a provocateur. With his many bestselling books and columns – and yes, even his own theatre show – he urges us to think outside the box when it comes to our mental health. Not crazy about popping pills? Bram shared some interesting alternatives with me, from throwing out our phones to running ‘till we puke’.

Peas & peppers instead of pills

MD Friends

Peas & peppers instead of pills

by marlies|dekkers

General practitioner Tamara de Weijer believes that we would feel a lot better if we hit the produce stand before we visited the pharmacy. “On a massive scale, we have been putting the wrong kind of fuel in our bodies.”

Singles Day – You’ve Got this!

Marlies Says

Singles Day – You’ve Got this!

by marlies|dekkers

All the single ladies, listen up! With single women rapidly becoming the majority, it is high time to stop feeling singled out. This Singles Day, let’s celebrate our freedom and independence by sharing all those solo milestones that make us go: ‘You’ve got this!’.