Conceptualisation
Five Years From Now – An ARKET Pop-Up Concept
Academic project · Retail strategy & pop-up store concept for an existing brand
For this project I developed a phygital pop-up for ARKET in Amsterdam, built around one question: “Where will I be in five years?” My market research showed that Dutch consumers are digitally advanced, sustainability-aware and very value-conscious. They will listen to a durability story, but they still want to know why something is worth the price. I used the pop-up to make ARKET’s “Designed to Stay” philosophy feel concrete. Customers write a letter to their future self, which is delivered five years later. NFC garment tags give product transparency, and an AR experience shows the future life of a garment. I also created the store layout, the assortment strategy across four drops, the visual merchandising, a financial plan with a €60K revenue target and a promotion campaign of hand-delivered envelopes across Amsterdam. The project taught me how to connect brand storytelling with commercial strategy.
MISIA – “The I Collection”
Academic project · Brand creation & jewellery collection concept
MISIA is a contemporary jewellery brand I developed, inspired by the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. The name comes from arteMISIA. Rather than retelling her trauma, I chose to focus on what she achieved: her authorship, her visibility and her place as the first woman admitted to Florence’s Accademia delle Arti del Disegno. I researched historical jewellery symbolism and turned it into the first collection, “The I Collection”, named after the way Artemisia signed her work. Baroque pearls stand for imperfect beauty, gold chains for recognition, memento mori stones for memory and engraved rings for truth. Each piece comes with a story card explaining its meaning. I also built the brand identity, from a hand-drawn logo shaped like a Baroque pearl to a dark, candlelit palette. For the launch I designed “The Room of Her Own”, an immersive gallery-style event where the jewellery is displayed like cultural objects. With this project I wanted to show how historical research can become a brand that sells meaning as well as design.
Lived Faces – Why Fashion Is Still Afraid of Ageing
Academic project · Critical research & podcast concept
Lived Faces started from a contradiction I couldn’t ignore. People over 50 account for around half of global consumer spending, yet fashion still sells youth as the ideal. Older women are often hidden, retouched or only shown as icons and exceptions. I analysed how ageism appears in current campaigns, anti-ageing language and casting. I then set out five areas where the industry needs to change: representation, language, product and styling, consumer research and leadership. To turn this critique into something constructive, I developed Lived Faces, a 10-episode fashion and culture podcast. It is hosted by a young creative and guided by older women in fashion: models, stylists, designers, brand owners and silver consumers. Its tone is editorial, reflective and sharp. With this project I wanted to show that older women should be treated as consumers to respect, not problems to correct.
