When you are addicted, you should not go to places where you know you are going to be tempted. I know. My shopping addiction or, if you want to sugar that, my love for beauty 😆 forced me to go on a financial diet. One which I had vowed to stick to for 5 months. I lasted 5 weeks. Because of this bag. When you are in The Netherlands this weekend, you should go to the Design & Craft fair in the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. Below you will find all of my photos. I do apologize for the poor quality. I will put the designer’s name with nearly every picture I took. (Note: no links available as they outdated).
Let me start with something very Dutch… raincoats. The stall of Waterdicht (translation: waterproof) was the first thing you saw, even before entering the fair. It is not easy to find nice looking raincoats and as we chatted I found out I had already bought one of their previous collection.
Below: in the left photo you see a lady behind me. That is Hedy d’Ancona, a formidable lady in politics. She was just leaving, having bought the raincoat I am wearing. I have to say, it looked even better on her. Top right photo below: Judith of Waterdicht is styling me. I could do with that more often.
Below: when I entered the fair I was welcomed by a very warm atmosphere. The stalls looked nice, the food and coffee were excellent (so rare on a fair) and the lighting was warm and inviting.
Below: first stall with bags and boots by JK (Joaney Korevaar).
Below: the always perfect bags by Hesther van Eeghen. That little red one, below right… so cute.
Below: krabbé + akerboom. Their cutlery is folded from 1 piece of aluminium. Very Japanese, real craftmanship. And they had jewellery too.
Below: designer Judith Bloedjes makes lovely hand turned porcelain jewellery and vase objects. I loved that clip she is wearing.
Below: bag… handmade, hand pleated leather by Mrs Rosehip. The handle looks a bit funny due to my crude photoshopping. There was something distracting in the picture I had to get rid of. Gosh I so wanted that bag… especially the one that was slightly bigger than this one. But being on a financial diet and spending almost € 800….. was still too much of a conflict. I am not saying it is not worth it, far from it.
Below: lovely scarves and wraps were also to be found. Sorry, forgot to write down the names of the designers.
Below: there were several lamp and furniture designers, but as they don’t have my real interest I forgot to write down their names too. I am a lousy reporter.
Below: an object, but also a vase. By Esther Stasse.
Below: again an object but also a vase. By Mooi keramiek (Rita Spaan Klauss). You can remove the little lid.
Below: Isn’t this cute? It is called WoodyBag, model RONDO, made by Eilard Meier.
Below: very fine twine braiding by Esmé Hofman (ESH Vlechtwerk) a dying art.
Below: masks by our famous Dutch artist Ans Markus. Very talented, very beautiful and also a nice person.
Below: a lot of visitors were looking pretty good as well, like this lady.
Below: more jewellery (think Audrey Hepburn style). By DRKS.
Below: the designer Iris Nijenhuis, wearing one of her necklaces, made by using laser technique. How about the jacket??? To die for.
Below: not your ordinary clothes hangers. There is a special process for making these. By House of Hermeta.
Below: then I turned around and held my breath. Love at first sight for the bags by Marck&Mo. My resolutions were shaking. 
Below: I tried both the small one and the big one. I tried, I talked and I walked away.
Below: this was something I had never seen before. Over the shoe covering. By Pepavana. Designer Pepa in the right corner below. I couldn’t get a good shot of her as there was not enought light near her stall.
Below: turning the corner, there were necklaces designed by using old jewellery pieces. Made by Marianne Moerman (right corner below) of VJR Jewels. 
Below: another big temptation. The necklaces of Paulien Wiertz. Even our queen Maxima is wearing one.
Below: the stall next to her was full of glass objects. By Bibi Smit.
Below: I immediately spotted this very good looking lady when she came in and I secretly started to photograph her. When I asked her whether I might use the photos for my blog, she got out her reading glasses!! I thought she was about 28, but no.. she is over 40.
Below: bag by Wies & Els, through the Leather Design Foundation by Hesther van Eeghen. I think the black things spell “fragile”.
Below: hand made wall paper by Snijder&Co. Top left you see a scale model of a room. It might be too much for a whole room, but above the chimney above the fire place…. (for those who are fortunate enough to have one).
Below: these ladies were well over 40 and looked so good, I had to show them to you. The lady on the right said she got the beautiful little bag as consolation for her injured arm.
I had a lovely cappuccino and thought it over…. was I going to leave without the bag or not? As I was about to receive some money back from the insurance company I convinced myself it was OK (the poor excuses women come up with haha. I know I am not the only one who does this).
Below: the one I bought.
Lots of photos, but I hope you enjoyed them. And I bet you will agree there was a LOT of temptation. Having bought one bag is not even that bad, right? 😀
Greetje
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