How Duran Lantink bubbled to the top

There’s a running joke in the Amsterdam studio of Duran Lantink whenever the Dutch designer describes his clothes as “commercial”. “You don’t want to know how many eye rolls I get when I say something is commercial,” says Lantink. “It’s become my catchphrase… and people think I’m insane.”

The punchline is that Lantink’s clothes, which veer towards the avant-garde, are typically a hard sell. He’s best known for his “bubble” skirts, tops and sweetheart dresses that have been inflated like life jackets, and for broader constructions, which he calls “forms”, that morph the wearer. One recent creation, a grey double-breasted jacket with a structure that accentuates the shoulders, could transform anyone into David Byrne. 

It felt logical to have brands melded together

Although his subversive designs might not yet suit all mainstream tastes, his brand has garnered impressive industry buzz: his clothes have appeared on the covers of countless magazines, and been worn by Beyoncé, Doja Cat and Janelle Monáe, for whom he created the “vagina” trousers in the singer’s 2018 music video for “Pynk”. Last year, he was awarded the ANDAM Special Prize, and on 10 September was announced as the winner of the runner-up Karl Lagerfeld Special Jury Prize for the 2024 LVMH Prize.

Stylists love his designs. “I am drawn to the structural elements in his clothing, which push the boundaries of traditional fashion,” says Jodie Barnes, who works with Lantink on his runway shows. “I love that he continually questions silhouette, and strives to refine his forms while introducing new elements every season.” 

Lantink, a cherub-faced 36-year-old, was born and raised in The Hague but moved to Amsterdam to study at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2010. He made his first fashion collection in 2016, in collaboration with his photographer friend Jan Hoek and a community of transgender sex workers in Cape Town; it featured a patchwork of fabrics, prints and techniques – and a lot of frills and tulle. 

His early work centred around turning existing clothes into new ones, “like seeing a beautiful jacket and imagining how it could be trousers”, says Lantink. “This has always been a very natural way for me to work, because as a child I was obsessed with the shape of clothes – but not flat fabric. So I started to transform clothing at an early age, and that became my handwriting and the way I could communicate what I like.”

Lantink didn’t intend to upcycle in the way that the fashion industry does now – it was just a handy, sustainable coincidence. “It wasn’t a conscious choice, or that I wanted to make the world a better place. At the same time, I was always sad when I saw pieces lying in a charity shop, not being used. Then, at art school, I started seeing fast fashion and the amount of over-production from bigger brands, and thought about what I can do not only with vintage pieces but also deadstock.” 

He worked with retailers such as Browns, Leclaireur and H Lorenzo, as well as fashion brands including Ellery, cutting up their unsold products and resewing them into unique pieces. One design, from July 2021, Frankensteined a pair of vinyl 1017 ALYX 9SM trousers and a vintage Burberry trench coat into rodeo-style pants. A jacket from the same year was concocted from a wool Prada coat, vintage Oscar Suleyman rabbit-hide trousers and a Louis Vuitton canvas. Another minidress, made from the same stash of LV monogrammed fabric, is now held in the collection of The Met. 

“It was really nice to combine brands that you’re not supposed to, like Chanel with Dior, because it breaks the boundaries of what you can and can’t do,” says Lantink. “It was also a reflection of what people were wearing in the streets at that time; you would never see somebody completely in Louis Vuitton or Alaïa. So it felt logical to have all these different brands merged together.” 

Lantink continued working in this way until stores wouldn’t give him deadstock products any more. So he pivoted. His brand debuted at Paris Fashion Week in 2023 with a ready-to-wear collection that still used deadstock fabrics, recycled cotton and old jeans, but was made in a way that didn’t rely on old luxury goods. Here, he introduced his “bubble” designs that were a reimagination of wardrobe staples, rather than clothes to transform the body. 

“Unlike Rei Kawakubo from Comme des Garçons, whose lumps and bumps were about changing the perspective of the body, mine are about transforming a classic,” says Lantink. “Like how to change the form of a denim jacket or a button-down shirt.” 

The launch of his ready-to-wear also ignited the conversation about how to make his designs more commercial – and his business more viable in the long term. His AW24 collection is more toned down than his previous work, yet still includes subtle nods to his signature shapes. He’s also establishing recurring core designs, such as the “Floating” styles – jeans, skirts and T-shirts that have a simple sheer panel sewn in, hinting at deconstructionism. Lantink is also eyeing accessories – shoes, bags and sunglasses – to diversify the business. 

“Now, we’re doing fine financially, we’re in the six figures, but we want to get to seven figures – a million in revenue,” says Lantink. The designer is also planning to relocate to Paris, which he says has a better support network than Amsterdam, where 80 per cent of his clothes are currently made. 

Lantink is building his wholesale business too: he’s currently stocked at The Broken Arm in Paris, H Lorenzo in Los Angeles and within Dover Street Market globally. “Customers are surprised and thrilled to discover a brand like Duran’s in store,” says Kate Coffey, director of Dover Street Market Paris. “We have a lot of people trying on the bubble tops; it has become a very social and playful point during visits.” Coffey adds that Lantink’s inflated hot pants, shirts and jeans are selling well. “It is very different from anything else on the market today.” 

Lantink’s hope is that customers will meet him halfway. “I want to make people think about whether it could be wearable, to give them the feeling that they might just be able to wear it in the street.” He says that opting for “smaller forms” is one way of making them engage with his approach. “It’s an important way for me to grow, to start making people believe that a form could be commercial.” 

A compromise that might, plausibly, realise Lantink’s dream – to one day see someone in a supermarket, wearing a full bubble outfit.

Casting, Piergiorgio Del Moro and Helena Balladino at DM Casting