“It’s not just the collection. I think for me, it’s the whole world inside it.”
Papa Yorick
fashion interview by Chance Goode
all images courtesy of Papa Yorick, unless noted otherwise.
A Discussion With Papa Yorick About His Disruptive Debut Collection
Dutch designer Yorick Westerkamp, better known as Papa Yorick, made waves this Fashion Month with his disruptive debut collection. Rather than sewing designs from scratch, Papa Yorick twisted and contorted clothing from his own wardrobe, transforming them into a 25-look collection. When I came across photos online of his guerrilla fashion show, where models standing in storefront windows were seen bare naked, dressed as pirates, and wearing cock rings as jewelry, I knew I had to find out more. I met with the rebellious designer over Zoom, where he reflected on clipping his closet into a collection, working for Vaquera, and selling his underwear online to fund his fashion label.
Chance Goode: Good morning. It’s nice to meet you.
Papa Yorick: Nice to meet you too!
CG: So tell me, where did the name Papa Yorick come from?
PY: It started when I was 17 because I always took care of my group of friends. After I finished high school, I changed my name to Papa Yorick, so everyone started calling me that. When I began attending Gerrit Rietveld Academie, an art institute in Amsterdam, it became my artist name, which I later adopted as my brand name.
CG: The collection was fantastic. How do you feel now that it’s out there?
PY: I feel good. It always takes me a while until I am completely satisfied with it. This was my first solo collection without a collective and my first collection since my graduation collection. I was the puppet master of my own collection, from beginning to end. I feel really good about that, and I think I executed it exactly as I wanted. So in that sense, I’m super happy and excited. Maybe in a year, I will be entirely satisfied.
CG: I was reading the show notes, where you wrote that you dreamt up this collection while you were sick, staring at your wardrobe. Tell me more about how the collection came together.
PY: Immediately after I graduated from the art institute, I gradually became sicker and sicker until I couldn’t work anymore. I did Berlin Fashion Week and Amsterdam Fashion Week as part of a collective. After the second collection, I was like, I can’t do it anymore. I was in the hospital all the time. In those two years, I was basically doing nothing —resting a lot and spending a lot of time at home, where I have about four closets full of clothing. While in recovery, I was so bored out of my mind and felt like I had to do something.
My starting point was an idea that disregarded the need for innovation in clothing, without remaking it, just showing it as it is. I invited all my friends over. I put up a big backdrop, got all my clothes out of the closet, and laid them on the floor. Then I found this box of metal clips in my room and started clipping away and draping them on people. Usually, I work with a lot of concepts and theories, and write a lot as well. But this was the first time I just started draping without thinking, and then later realized the characters. The characters were straight out of a fantasy in my style, but also adjusted to whoever I had in front of me.
I gathered about 385 looks. I made a preselection and put them on my wall. I stared at it for a month, rearranging looks, ripping some, and removing others. It was a long process. We then saw these subcategories within the collection, which was a key point because the collection didn’t have a concept yet. I needed something to hold on to, which led to five distinct subcategories within the collection. It took me four months to finalize and sort out the collection, first down to 42 pieces, and then finally to 25.
CG: The five groups from the collection are: farmers, sailors, pirates, maidens, and aristocrats. How did you decide on those characters?
PY: This was very much based on aesthetics. Farmers were really easy to conjure up because I used everything I had in my household. Like in some looks, I used fruit and vegetables as bags. And then the color coding within the farmer group so happened to be these browns and leather-like materials. The pirates were also very easy to identify because of their pirate hats. When I had about 80 looks left, I started flipping the prints, collaging them on top of each other, and finding what worked together and what didn’t.
There are two looks in the aristocrat and maiden categories in which the dresses were tucked above the panties. I thought to myself, if I’m doing this sort of 1800s sleazy collection, it would be interesting if it looked as if these virgin maidens had sex, and this is the aftermath.
CG: I think you’re referring to one of my favorite looks. It’s like the ultra-short leather dress, clipped up to expose pink panties.
PY: It’s pleather. That’s one of the aristocrats, which mirrors the white maiden look. It was actually quite a nice decision because I wanted it to be barely visible. During the show’s rehearsal, I had six assistants who helped me dress everyone. We had to practice a lot because they needed to know how everything would be placed. They kept flipping everything super high up, and I decided that I actually liked this. I told the models to wear their own underwear, which perfectly matched the entire collection. I like those accidents in a collection.
CG: Because metal clips held up the looks, did you have to put together and style them right before the show?
PY: Yeah. We had about an hour before we started dressing the models, but it wasn’t really stressful. I divided six people into pairs so everyone had their own model to dress. During the day, we had a two-hour rehearsal. It seemed like there wasn’t really a logic to the clipping, but there were some repetitive elements that I would explain to my assistants to help them see my vision.
There was this one dress, which was also in the aristocrat section of the show, made from a trench coat. That one was clipped differently every single time because it is so delicate and difficult to replicate. Before the show, my assistants would ask me, “Hey, I clipped it like this; it’s slightly different. Is this okay?” I explained to them that it was nice this way. Early on, I decided this wasn’t a problem because the essence would still be there. As long as the essence is there, the collection is alive.
Once you remove all the clips, it’s just clothing, and no one can replicate it exactly as the fantasy is. The fantasy started in my bedroom; during the show, I elevated it further, but it only existed in that moment. This gave me a lot of freedom. I know a lot of designers who are so strict about everything, and I think fashion shouldn’t be like that. It should be fun and exciting. You need to show something different. I think people kill themselves trying to be perfect within the fashion industry.
CG: You said that you created the fantasy in your room. Was the show also held in your room?
PY: No, the show was in my studio, which used to be a corner shop with these great big windows. Initially, I was going to do the show during Amsterdam Fashion Week, but they had all these restrictions, and it was very last-minute. I decided that I wanted to do my own thing. Within six weeks, I changed the entire concept, and I held it at my studio. I built a stage and asked this set designer to help me create an opera fantasy within the windows.
The show was in the evening. I invited the entire neighborhood to come and watch because I didn’t want the police to show up over the huge speakers I set up outside the shop. I think about 400 people showed up, which is crazy. People stopped their cars in the middle of the road and started watching. The neighbors across the street were on their balconies, watching the show too. It really became like the movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. In this movie, they had a traveling show where people would open a big box, enjoy the show, and then leave. That was basically my fashion show. It was literally fifteen minutes.
I also worked with the models on how they should walk. I didn’t want a grand performance, but I also didn’t want a boring walk. I wanted it to feel almost like they were waiting in a twilight zone, showing off their look, walking to the other window, showing off again, and then walking off.
It’s not just the collection. I think for me, it’s the whole world inside it.
Photo credit: Marc de Groot
CG: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is an excellent metaphor for your show, especially with the looks changing each time depending on how it is clipped, because, as you know, in the movie, every time someone would go into the Imaginarium, it would be a different experience depending on the person.
PY: For sure! For me, it’s this fantasy collection that translates to the outside world. I am very detail-oriented and work with many concepts. Everything has a reason or reference behind it. For example, the 1800s-style pants that all the boys wore — it’s like a three-quarter pant — are clipped in a way that accentuates the upper leg. Which actually references the Tom of Finland-style leather pants.
CG: Oh, I caught that right away!
PY: There are all these very gay and niche references that I don’t mind if someone doesn’t clock, but if you do clock them, then good for you because you know your references.
CG: I love all the sexual innuendos throughout the collection, whether it be cock ring necklaces or the jock strap worn as a fascinator. You said that you found the jock strap in a sex club. What’s the story behind that?
PY: I used to work at this famous sex club here in Amsterdam right after I graduated. I needed money and knew the manager, so I called him up, and he was like, “You can start tonight.” So I worked there for, I think, eight or nine months before I really got sick. I found a lot of research and inspiration working there, which is where I started collecting cock rings as well as the jockstrap. There is a lot of funky stuff you can find in a sex club.
CG: That’s so daring of you to use items collected at the sex club in your collection.
PY: Thanks. Of course, I boiled the cock rings. I wouldn’t have if I were the one wearing them, but I did it for the sake of the models.
CG: Your graduation project was about the ecosystem of gay porn. Can you tell me more about that?
PY: The art institute that I attended was quite theoretical and academic, so I had to write a thesis. I wrote in my thesis about how the appropriation of straight men in gay porn is actually making masculinity feel a bit safer towards gay people. I write about the lack of morality in gay porn, how it is just a fantasy world. I started translating this into a collection. The opening look was a pizza delivery boy with a pizza box in front of his crotch, which is exactly like a stereotypical opening scene you would find in porn. It was with this collection that I started to disregard the need to make something new.
The collection started with the pizza box, followed by a suit I made into a skirt and top, but I didn’t actually sew anything from scratch. I just draped it, styling-wise, onto the models. Which is where that idea grew from. It’s a fun way to experiment and be aggressive towards the fashion scene. I think that’s also what I have done with this latest collection. The fact that I used what I already had in my wardrobe and didn’t show any sewing skills or conform to the expectations of a fashion designer or brand felt quite disruptive to me —like, No, I’m not going to make anything.
Photos from Papa Yorick’s graduation collection, courtesy of Gerrit Rietveld Academie
CG: It’s transgressive to be a designer who creates this way. You are turning what’s already there into something completely different.
PY: Miguel Adrover did it 25 years ago, and no one has really done it like that since. Designers may do it, but it’s still not accepted within the fashion industry. And I definitely got some feedback on some of the stuff I used in my collection. Like, “Why did he use that?” But I don’t think there’s necessarily any ownership with clothing. With logos, sure, you could argue there’s ownership, but if I find someone’s clothing in a thrift store without any labels, why can’t I turn it into something else?
CG: You worked for Vaquera previously. How did that prepare you for this collection?
PY: Quite a lot! They are very serious about what they do, but they also have a lot of fun. They also have an “if we like it, then we like it” kind of attitude. When I started working there, they had just been acquired by Comme des Garçons, so they had to start thinking about what was sellable, their branding, etc. But I really like their attitude. Like, if they want to showcase something, then they want to have fun with it. I think that’s definitely what I took from my time being there, and I think that’s what I did with my graduation collection, as well. My teachers didn’t like anything that I did, basically. But I was like, I know it’s gonna work. And it did work, it worked super well. I think that’s the kind of gut feeling one has to have as a creator, whether that’s as a fashion designer or an artist; it is something you need to take with you and to heart, because I do it, and it works.
CG: What are you doing when you’re not designing?
PY: You know the app Vinted, used to resell stuff? I recently started selling used underwear and sportswear on there. It’s very meta because people ask questions about the clothing, even though they’re really just getting off on the fact that I’m wearing it. So that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m also slowly starting to look for jobs. I also realized, during the period when I started making this collection, that I will never stop making collections. What I am also very good at is creating an entire world around something — fetishizing it — and I can do that for people, too. I’ve done that in the past. So I’m looking into jobs that fit that description.
CG: Lastly, who is your current crush right now?
PY: Well, I recently started swimming —not professionally, but I am swimming rather seriously. There’s this one guy there who is huge. Everything is huge. And he keeps flirting with me, so I think he’s definitely my current crush. I could do a celebrity crush, but that’s boring, so I think I will keep it in the swimming pool.
CG: Well, I hope that works out in your favor.
PY: It may have already.