A DECADE OF BONNE SUITS

By Livia Shah Cruger 

It’s been ten years since Bonne Reijn, then in his early twenties, embarked on a mission to revolutionise the fashion industry. Determined to create a versatile garment that would seamlessly blend into any wardrobe, suit informal and formal occasions, and fit any gender from XXXS to XXL, Bonne launched Bonne Suits. Since then, the brand has emerged as a counter to the overconsumption and overproduction that characterises fast fashion today.

As Bonne Suits celebrates its first decade, we sit down with Bonne and his right-hand man, Emile, at the flagship store located at Warmoesstraat 67 in Amsterdam, to reflect on the story of Bonne Suits, exploring its past achievements and the vision guiding its next chapter.

Bonne: My childhood and upbringing played a big role in the start of Bonne Suits. When growing up my great-aunt Mien, who was a celebrated landscape gardener, lived with us on the Oude Schans, our house in the city centre of Amsterdam. Mien’s house was located in the Netherlands countryside, a beautiful old greenery with lots of surrounding land. When we used to visit her house, my mother always dressed me in a farmer's overall. That’s were I think a lot of my inspiration from workwear comes from.

When my mother passed away when I was eight, I went to live with my foster parents on the Lauriergracht; they had a neighbour, Roelie, who was an old hippie. Roelie had a lover, or whatever you call it, who always came by in a cobalt blue suit from the MOF, a suit store in Amsterdam. My admiration for the coolest style he had, was a catalyser to design a two-piece suit.

Ten years ago, fast fashion was dominating the market and I wanted to create a monobrand, something that lasted and didn’t need to be replaced after six months. The idea behind it was that you should be able to buy pieces from us that can stay in your wardrobe for a lifelong time. In theory, you could have two of these suits and a pair of shoes plus everything you want to wear with them, but then you only need those two suits. I have a lot of love for fashion: I find the game of distinguishing yourself and how we relate to each other with what we wear very beautiful. But facts are that fashion harms the world, as marketing constantly tempts us to buy masses and distinguish ourselves even more.

When I was seventeen, I started working at Supermarket, a fashion store in Amsterdam where I started doing a lot of research for myself about what fashion was and the essence to being a fashion designer. I read about the couturiers and how they created from their homes, gave their first presentations from their homes and even did the distribution from their homes. Of course, that's also because the cost of starting a fashion brand is very high! Starting from your home is the most personal and the easiest thing you can do and that’s where I started Bonne Suits.

Guillaume Schmidt, one of the owners of Patta helped me set up my first collection. Vincent van der Waal, the creative director of Patta advised me on the development and look of Bonne Suits and Guus Kaandor showed me how to tie Bonne Suits identity to my past.

When my mother died, many of my past belongings were lost. I found some of them over the years. Guus said, “pick something very personal. Don't you have something in your mother's archives?” And then I came across an old invitation from my mother. My mother had a cafe where she had a painting of a pair of blue clogs. And those were my old clogs! I thought, 'Wow, that's beautiful. ' I send it to Guus and it immediately clicked, and now that’s the little Bonne Suits logo. Guus, Loulou his partner and Emil who works for Bonne Suits and is kind of the third man, have played an important role in this deep dive into my past and the making the connection to Bonne Suits.

Photography by Maarten van der Kamp