Into the Deep Blue
with BOTTER

The pair started BOTTER eight years ago as an ongoing conversation between their overlapping visions for the relaxed, self-possessed modern man and the idealized vision they have of the world in which he lives. With their bold use of color, ethereal florals, and airy silhouettes embellished with artful accessories (think fishing lures as necklaces), Herrebrugh and Botter have established themselves as a force in menswear design. In 2016, they caught the attention of iconic supermodel Naomi Campbell, and their work has since been featured in Antwaun Sargent’s The New Black Vanguard, worn by industry insiders including Luka Sabbat, and styled by London-based visionary and Dazed EIC Ib Kamara. Their fresh, esoteric approach to fashion carries over to couture house Nina Ricci, where the duo has been at the lead of its creative direction since 2018.

Herrebrugh and Botter utilize design to process and interpret social phenoms they’ve encountered or observed in their personal lives or the lives of those around them. In March 2020, right at the beginning of global lockdowns, they started work on a special project they had been planning for months prior: a coral farm in the Carribean. “There are enough garments already,” says Botter. “With fashion we are not saving the world. This project allows us to contribute to the Earth and there is the potential to make it bigger and bigger.” In this small, emotionally rich project Herrebrugh and Botter work with a small diving school in Curaçao, Curious 2 Dive, to harvest the still living appendages of dying coral reefs, nursing them and bringing them back to life, while encouraging healthy regrowth. “We have seen the conditions of the ocean around us change with our own eyes,” says Herrebrugh. “Clear bodies of water have become polluted and it’s terrifying, when you think of it, that we have seen these things shift so noticeably during our lifetime alone.”

This sense of environmental and social responsibility can be traced back to Herrebrugh and Botter’s adjacent experiences in the Carribean. “The mentality on an island is very different from a city in Europe, where everyone is focused on the idea of the individual,” says Herrebrugh. “The people in the Carribean are recognizable immediately,” adds Botter. “They have a different way of dressing, and their care for each other and the island is really noticeable.” Herrebrugh claims both Dominican and Dutch heritage, while Botter spent much of his youth in Curaçao. Elements from their comparable experiences and their respective love for the locales shows up subtly in most of their work.

Sharp, quiet tailoring permeates, with snatched waists, transparent layers and delicate embellishments that challenge traditional understandings of masculinity. Murses—modelled after floaters—appear here and there across one runway. Just as you have grown comfortable with the piece as an occasional accessory, the duo surprises you with the torso of another model, covered entirely by the mini floaters, which gather in numbers to form a vest, creating a Yayoi Kusama-like accretion on an otherwise simple outfit. Accessories are a vital part of each presentation, both for BOTTER and Nina Ricci. “I was taught at the Amsterdam Fashion Academy that a silhouette is from head to toe,” says Botter. “You really need all of these ingredients to tell a successful story.” To tell that story, the pair engage in rigorous research and free-wheeling dreaming. “Rushemy has this small booklet that he always writes stuff down or sketches in,” says Herrebrugh. “It's important to capture an idea exactly as it appears in your mind when you have it,” Botter adds.

For BOTTER’s Fall 2021 collection, models were sent down the runway wearing double layered trousers, with a voluminous flowering of cotton gathered around the natural waist. The outfit could be viewed as a reinterpretation or commentary on the sagging denim and boxer short pairing many African American men have been reviled for in their schools, jobs, and in the media. The effect here is elegant and highly conceptual, as is the source. In the same collection we find a crossbody iPhone case in glossy embossed leather that carries the form of a Black Power fist afro pick—resistance and care encapsulated in an arguably superfluous luxury object. All of these subtle notes are a consequence of long hours of contemplation and reflection. This consideration does much for the brand's sense of whimsy and surprise, lighter elements that front a deeper purpose.

Right now, the couple’s horizon of inspiration is expanding vastly. There is the ever-present influence of Caribbean life, it’s ease and it’s triumphs, as well as culturally rich stopgaps in the history of fashion. There are of course more direct references. Botter counts Alexander McQueen, Martin Margiela, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and perhaps surprisingly, Walt Disney (“He created dreams!”) among his inspirations. An element of play pervades both brands the couple works on, which can loosely be connected to Botter’s own personal collection of figurines, which he has continued to build since childhood. In BOTTER and Nina Ricci, activewear materials are repurposed, shocking color combinations are presented, like pistachio green and burnt orange, or sky blue with grapefruit pink, and impressive technical skill is wielded to create shapes reminiscent of ice cream scoops or the wobbly bodies of penguins.

There are nods to nostalgia—most notably in a capelet that resembles the kites from childhood skies in BOTTER’s Fall 2021 collection. There’s also the windbreaker the duo designed in collaboration with Maison Piganiol out of recycled umbrellas. Instead of crushed and discarded mid-storm, six umbrellas found a new life in the mustard-hued, tent-like garment. The sky reappears again in Nina Ricci’s collection from the same season in parachute-like forms that seem to envelope models in more air than fabric. The lightness of spirit the designers exhibit is sensibly balanced with the seriousness that pervades current events, especially in this last year and a half of sickness, death and difficulties. When asked what has been top of mind for them lately, Botter has his answer ready: “Police brutality in the United States of course. It really touches me emotionally. It affects me as a person and a designer and not just because I have family in the States. It’s a story that I want to tell and it keeps me awake and alert.”

The failings of state and citizen are preoccupations for both designers. They channel disgust and frustration at the state of much of the world and the earth on which it lives into creative and tangible solutions, like a coral farm, or an expansive visual definition of what menswear can look like. Sometimes they achieve success, sometimes they don’t, but they always keep at it. “You have these pieces that just... work,” says Botter. “You see them on the model and they are right! But then there are the pieces that are never finished. The ones that don’t have the right soul.” These pieces never see the light of day. “They are actually really important,” Herrebrugh adds. “As you create a story there will always be pieces that don't fit in the narrative. You have to be ready to throw things out. We have to be really curated.” The insistence on valuing unsuccessful pieces as much as the successes is just one part of the pair's humanistic approach to life. As Botter says, “it's important to seek value in everything and everybody.” An understanding of the necessity for both, has a lot to do with the couple's dedication to balance, in their profession and their personal, individual lives.

Rushemy Botter and Lisi Herrebrugh function like left and right hands—one does not need the other, but together they make beautiful and lasting impressions on the Earth. Each palm has its own entirely unique markings, scars and tendons, but paired with its match, is not only less alone, but capable of more. Possibility is at each fingertip, muscle memory is still being built, and the future holds so much if Herrebrugh and Botter continue down this path of responsibility, sensitivity and respect—for their people, their Earth, and their craft.

Camille Okhio is a writer and art and design historian living in New York City.