We love weddings..

Our famous princess Maxima married to crown-prince Willem Alexander in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam (02-02-2002).

We had a beautiful wedding there as well: the final for our 1984 Nieuwe Kerk fashion-show. And it was the very first fashion-show and wedding ever in this beautiful old church!!

We built a huge 25 feet high drapery out of textile and epoxy to freely stand (no strings attached 😉 ) in front of the Choir Screen (1645).  This drapery had to give a softer feeling to the overall strict atmosphere of the church.

The bridal dress was inspired by the sculpture and it gave us a headache to design the dress looking like it’s bigger sample. Linda Spierings, than a world-famous model, did a spectacular performance in the dress which was made up to her size. The almost 2000 guests got very excited and the Carmina Burana never sounded better! Have a look for yourself !

There is a lot more to tell about this show, we’ll keep it for another time, but you can also check our previous post: ‘Show 1984’.

This picture was our invitation starring: “The Curtain” (which had to be transported by a crane out of the workshop), Linda and… the two of us on motorbike!

Hippie Chic

1975: Puck and Carmen in front of our Rokin 40 – Amsterdam shop. Puck is wearing all P&H: silk jacket and ikat woven skirt. The The Hague Gemeentemuseum acquired our design for their collection.

The ikat fabric we found in Hyderabad – India.

‘It was such a pleasant sight to see the men in Hyderabad cycling elegantly through this beautiful city, dressed in spotless white shirts and colorful  dhoti skirts, made of similar fabrics as our skirt’.

Carmen wears an original Indian kurta. Puck’s  Adige shoes were imported for our shop from Paris.

Puck and Carmen on the Thieves Market (Chor Bazaar) in Mumbai searching for antique embroideries (left) and a few years later more scores for some unique pieces (right)!

La Camisole Shoot

As when we started our shops (first in The Hague, the year after in Rotterdam and than Amsterdam) fashion-photography was an almost unknown phenomena in those days. Yes, of course there were the leading ladies magazines in Holland, but they were more based on religion than on the brink of fashion. So to get a nice picture published of your designs was not easy! Luckily a bunch of young and upcoming photographers were eager to make free work which they eventually could sell to one of the newer magazines.

This was a fashion-shoot (1971) in our Rotterdam store. Photographer Hes van Schoonhoven van Buurden and model Floor Nijhe wearing sexy P&H camisole and lovely Dorothée Bis platform shoes (which we imported exclusively from Paris and sold for only Hfl 125,00 = ± € 55,00!!).

Fashion Windows!

Big fun to do the windows! Before we were offered to use Adele Rootstein‘s mannequins for free (as P.R. for Rootstein: our windows were qualified by them among the best in the world, I’m proud to say so!) we made some satin dolls stuffed with kapok and used handpainted masks to give them a facial expression. Well of course the real mannequins were lots better, but these dolls were fun as well. You only needed lots of nylon wire to keep them up!

Herewith some examples: the yellow silk chiffon dress with pleated ruffles was our own original Puck & Hans design and very beautiful! These fabrics were bought by us on several trips we made to India (around 1970). Wooden statue in the back: work by Kees Kroon, Pucks brother.

The second window shows a very nice dress by Ossie Clark for Quorum, the hat was made by London hatdesigner Valerie Paynter. The drawing in the back was made by one of our assistents: Veronica!

Carmen!

In 1969 our daughter Carmen was born!  Mostly dressed in Oshkosh and all the other clothes designed by mom Puck!

< Hand-dyed satin dress with mother-of-pearl buttons

 

 

 

 

The girls in furs: here Carmen wears a mini version of our succesful fur coats. Puck’s own style is including an Ossie Clark printed crepe de chine shirt.

fur, fur, fur!

When we just started our shop in The Hague (1967) we didn’t only work with all kinds of fabrics but also offered a range of fur-coats, made to measure, for woman or man! Here Puck in front of the shop (watch the psychedelic window!) wearing a so called ‘Toscan Lamb’ coat. Satin silk blouse and wool 2 piece also designed by her.

The art of working with fur was taught to us by Puck’s brother Kees, who was a fur-craftsman. Here Hans proudly presents a just finished fur jacket.

Show 1984

We had never seen such queues in Amsterdam, attendants to our fashion show were lined up all over the Dam square to enter in the 17th century Nieuwe Kerk to see our fashion-show. We had a cool almost 2000 guests and a spectacular show with famous mannequins Linda Spierings, Pat Cleveland, Appolonia van Ravesteijn and .. a first time appearance for Famke Janssen! With some help of our friends Franciscus Ankoné and Eddy de Clercq and our own crew we transformed the beautiful church in a real fashion-temple. If you follow this link you’ll see part of the final scene by Linda.