About
Katharina Spitz
Katharina Spitz is an Amsterdam based Designer and Dressmaker. She has a great passion for hourlong handiwork, contemplating the human body, and the knitting and untangling of the social fabric in matter, form and spirit.
In 2013 she made her rite de passage into the world of dressmaking as an apprentice at Pio O'kan Couture in Düsseldorf; after which she emancipated herself as an autonomous fashion designer at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) where she graduated at the Institute for experimental Textile and Fashion Design in October 2021.
Her passion for crafting and dressmaking remains a key component within her artistic practice. Fashion is for her first of all a way of being in the world: it interprets and shapes our social networks and ultimately our position in space and time. Through critical intellectual, personal and material engagement with the world around her she seeks ways in which her designs, performances and dressmaking can open up new perspectives and ways of being in a world that is suffering from pollution, misogyny, inequality and deep-seated alienation.
In her 2021 collection "Play harder" she for example questions the strained relation between work and play in modern western societies. Another example is her 2020 collection "In the Face of Loss" in which she reconsiders the relation between mortality, womanhood and crafting. Collaboration is key in her design practice, so is spontaneity as well as precision, playfulness and sincerity.Vita
// Teaching own crafting Workshops at De Steek Amsterdam // jul. 2022 – today
// Marlou Breuls Creative Studio [House of Rubber] // Designer and Studiomanager // jan. 2022 – today
// costume design for Sean Hannan’s work ‘LUCK’ exhibited at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, When things are beings // 11. 2022
// textile crafting advise and making of textile sculpture ‘head of medusa’ by Susanna Inglada, exhibited at Papertrails Kunstlinie, Almere, // oct. 2022 - jan. 2023
// Marlou Breuls Creative Studio // Design Intern // sep. 2020 – feb. 2021
// Student at Berlin University of the Arts [Udk], Institute for experimental Textile and Fashion Design // BA Fashion Design // sep. 2017 – oct. 2021
// Tutor at Berlin University of the Arts [Udk], Institute for experimental Textile and Fashion Design // teaching dressmaking and design implementation // sep. 2019 – mrt. 2021
// womenswear dressmaker at Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, crafting the soloists costumes // mrt. 2017 – jul.2017
// artisanal skills, developed during a three year apprenticeship at Pio O‘kan Couture, Düsseldorf, an Haute Couture salon for exclusive high-end womenswear. // sep. 2013 – aug. 2016
Exhibitions
Exhibition of Lin Woldendorp at Pllek, Amsterdam,from 09/2022 featuring “In the Face of Loss” garments
Exhibition of Lin Woldendorp at Sissy’s Expo, Amsterdam, from 06/2022 featuring “In the Face of Loss” garments
Schau21, 30/10/2021 Graduationshow featuring ‘Play Harder’ at Konzersaal UdK Berlin
‘Bootcamp: Humans Only’, 15/09/2019 at HKW Berlin
‘Utopias of digital Physicality’, 15/09/2019, showing SDF at Robert-Koch-Forum
Algomech Festival 18.-20./05/2019, Group Exhibition, ‘Rituals of Care’ in collaboraboration with Frederik Britzlmair and Camilla Volbert