At a young age, he flunked out of the prestigious Design Academy in Eindhoven because he didn’t want to be like the others. Today he is known as the Lady Gaga of design. There’s no question about it: Marcel Wanders, born in the Netherlands in 1963, is the pop star among designers.
After he was thrown out, however, fame took a while to come. First Wanders hired on at the Arnhem School of Arts and graduated there with honors in 1988. The decisive step then came in 1996: with his Amsterdam studio, Wanders opened a creative center that the British Observer once called “one of the most productive idea machines for multidisciplinary design.”
Since then, this idea machine has realized over 1,900 projects; including work for Alessi, Cappellini, Flos, Bisazza, Boffi, Christofle, KLM, Hyatt Hotels and Louis Vuitton. Wanders created a modern design classic in 1996 with the Knotted Chair, which consists entirely of cords artfully knotted together.
In 2001 he co-founded the design label Moooi. As busy as Wanders is, he is not only the owner, but also the creative director and designer, who regularly enriches the collection with new pieces according to the company motto “Moooi gives the unexpected welcome!
Over the course of his career, the Dutchman has been awarded the Rotterdam Design Prize and the Alterpoint Design Award, among others, as well as various Designer of the Year awards. In addition, his work has been on display, for example, at the MoMA in New York, the V&A Museum in London and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Wanders’ Design ist mit vielen Labels versehen worden: von Neobarock bis Highend-Design. Er selbst hat seine Einstellung zum Design in einem Interview einmal so auf den Punkt gebracht: „Ich bin ein Designer, ich will designen. Ich will nicht nur das Nötigste machen, sondern so viel wie möglich.“
