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"   A look from Jonathan Christopher&amp;#039;s collection. Photo: Kasimir Szekeres  ARNHEM, THE NETHERLANDS\u2014When the world&amp;#039;s best fashion schools stage their graduate shows their front rows fill up with fashion&amp;#039;s power players. One never knows where they&amp;#039;ll find the next Tisci or Theyskens, but there&amp;#039;s a good bet they&amp;#039;re at Central St. Martins, Parsons or La Cambre\u2014and now, maybe ArtEZ. Elly Lamaker, &amp;quot;the grand old lady of Dutch fashion,&amp;quot; founded the school&amp;#039;s fashion department in 1953 and since then it&amp;#039;s trained students like Viktor &amp;amp;amp; Rolf and Lanvin&amp;#039;s menswear designer Lucas Ossendrijver. This year&amp;#039;s graduate presentation was staged during the Arnhem Mode Biennial, a sort of fashion meets art event celebrating the city&amp;#039;s sartorial talent. ArtEZ set up a showroom-like venue filled with sketches, photographs and models to illustrate the entire process, from inspiration to development and set it up near the Biennale&amp;#039;s main exhibition to encourage viewers and students to think of fashion&amp;#039;s proximity to art, rather than focus on its commercial aspect\u2014an approach we&amp;#039;d soon learn is very Antwerp. Designs ranged from gender-bending menswear to colorful, comic unisex pieces and naughty sci-fi wear. &amp;quot;It is hard to point out one single tendency of course, but there seems to be a real interest in menswear these days,&amp;quot; said ArtEZ professor and fashion sociologist Jos\u00E9 Teunissen. The school&amp;#039;s prize student at the moment is probably Jonathan Christopher. The young menswear graduate was just handpicked by Marc Jacobs to compete in Berlin&amp;#039;s Designer for Tomorrow competition. Christopher&amp;#039;s clothes subtly mix male and female references for an elongated, androgynous look. &amp;quot;You should always be able to wear your designs yourself,&amp;quot; said Christopher, &amp;quot;I mean, if you don&amp;#039;t wear it, who will?&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/news/a6708/arnhems-fashion-talent-23502/>