Early in my career I worked at Viktor & Rolf in Amsterdam, supporting the Head of Brand Image and the PR manager. My role covered press relations, sample traffic, writing press releases and celebrity dressing, including working with renowned Dutch stylist and creative director Stacey Rookhuizen. A highlight was organising the Paris shows, including the RTW Autumn/Winter 2009 and Spring/Summer 2010 ready-to-wear presentations, managing invitations and seating.

I also worked on the press for two culturally significant projects. The first was Viktor & Rolf's costume design for Der Freischütz, a romantic opera by Carl Maria von Weber directed by Robert Wilson, which premiered at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in May 2009. The duo used almost one million Swarovski crystal elements to create the show-stopping looks, with soloists wearing 3D constructions in bright saturated hues and words emblazoned across panels and shoulders, combining a comic strip aesthetic with folkloric references.

The second was their contribution to the Dutch Pavilion at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, which featured a hologram of a model wearing a Swarovski crystal-embroidered couture mini-dress, showcasing Dutch design and craftsmanship on a global stage.

I also had the privilege of digitising and archiving the Viktor & Rolf archive, cataloguing their sketches and tracking the locations of specific garments, a project that gave me a rare and intimate understanding of the house's creative history.