10 February 2015 // Laura de Wit //Amsterdam

//LAURA'S

Rain. It is the weather condition in Holland that everyone dislikes (to put it mildly) and wants to avoid when possible. It might sound hard to believe, but this unattractive Dutch weather can create beautiful and poetic prints.

Made by Rain is a project by Aliki van der Kruijs who has a fashion and graphic design background. She inherited a book from her grandfather in which he kept track of the daily Dutch weather for many years. This extensive document was the motive for van der Kruijs to use these data as the starting point of a research on the Dutch weather.

She developed a technique on her own that she calls ‘pluviagraphy’, which makes it possible to catch rain drops by using a special coating on textile. These textiles are exposed to rain for several minutes whereby the rain becomes imprinted. By transforming rain drops into a print it becomes possible to ‘wear the weather’ as Kruijs explains. Every printed textile is unique and is accompanied by the data of the location, time and weather condition of the moment the print was made.

Kruijs applied her technique on silk scarfs and collaborated with ZigZagZurich, which resulted in a collection of home textiles.