A C T I V I T I E S
D E S I G N E R
C R E A T I V E D I R E C T O R
B R A N D S T R A T E G I S T
I don’t really see these three facets of my work as separate. They are all part of the same creative process. I simply cannot put my heart into designing something if I have no attachment to the brand, its history, its story, its values. Shops worldwide are filled with examples of ‘detached design’: bland products without any spirit or substance. That’s not what I want to do. Whatever I design, it is always an integral part of a greater ensemble. And it’s the ensemble—with its matching and its contradicting parts—that tells the stories worth remembering and retelling. Worth curating.
DESIGNER
Designing is not about beauty, but what beauty creates: harmony and joie de vivre.
There is always beauty in happiness. So I try to create happiness...
Everything is defined by light and by colour. I cannot always control light but I obsess over colour.
“I marvel at what has been and then I look ahead, searching for the NOW, for the NEXT. Always shifting perceptions, always changing the point of view.”
Reinhilde was asked once if designing was difficult. She said the question was difficult; the answer was not. Because it's her life. And just like life, everything that you have experienced goes into it. Goes into what she designs. So essentially, it’s a never ending process. Or rather, a series of processes, each resulting in a number of tangible products. And exactly like life, every single one of these products should create value and be meaningful to both her as the designer and to the people for whom it was designed.
"Everyday is an opportunity to start again and do better !"
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
More is more. Only when applied with constraint.
It’s about embracing personal expression rather than searching for minimalistic perfection.
“Some think that I am chaotic because I like to mix periods and styles, materials, colours and textures. But for me there is ORDER and SYMMETRY: a perfectly organised chaos that invokes all senses.”
A mix and match. In perfect harmony. In perfect contradiction!
When I spoke to Reinhilde about what she understood under the term Style Curator, the discussion that followed was mainly about seeing, about the eye. About what I came to understand as her natural talent to distinguish what ‘works’ and what doesn’t. About being able to just know which particular tone of blue is perfect. Or which particular detail will energise the product, while the other will burden it. About mixing and matching into a unique composition. About selecting and discarding. All with an uncanny efficiency and accuracy and—by experience—the skill to explain her choices rationally to those, like me, who are both enamoured by the result and confronted with their inability to do the same.
“My eyes never take a rest: my life is a non-stop registration of images. In this way, I could indeed be considered a workaholic. But what a joy.”
BRAND STRATEGIST
To reinvigorate brands and connect them with elegance, with uniqueness...
...to create brands desirable and must-have.
Disclosing the narrative by what is left untold!!
“Products are unique not only for their DESIGN but mainly for what they personify, for the dreams that they suggest. Building dreams however takes both PASSION and RIGOUR.”
Today’s world seems dominated by Instagram and Facebook’s visual shock therapy of the single image. Based on a one-image-tells-it-all obligation. Events, detached and unrelated, exposed without any context. Made and consumed in a flash. Retained only when it shocks. Otherwise as quickly erased as it was displayed. For Reinhilde it’s different. For her it’s all in the sequence. How one observation leads to another, invites to dig in deeper. Reveals the similarities and differences, the intimacies and the separations. She calls it visual storytelling; and it is the essence of her work as a designer. Because storytelling relates the product to its surroundings, both in time and space. Making it contextual and relevant.
"It's not the anecdote I'm interested in, but the chronicle."