Inspired by youth culture, friendship and family bonds, self-taught fashion design duo LaFam have been challenging the norms of streetwear design since Summer 2017. Siblings barely out of school, Anna and Renze hold a unique perspective on the world of streetwear and fashion design that informs a strong and influential brand; championing collaboration, fluidity and inclusivity.

How does your experience of music, art and culture outside of fashion play into your clothing design?
As children we were very much raised around culture, for example, we always went to museums, where we gained a lot of inspiration. The Amsterdam municipal museum is the Amsterdam museum of modern art, I still go there when I experience a creative block. For the rest, my experience of listening to hip-hop plays a role; many clothes worn by artists inspire me, both Dutch and international. I also have many video clips that I use for inspiration.

You have previously described your inspiration for starting La Fam as wanting a place / playground to express your creativity outside of the constraints of the claustrophobic alpha / beta school environment. Do you feel this lack of creativity in education is still affecting young people today?
I finished high school two years ago, after being there for six years. We didn't doanything creative there, I only had music lessons until the second grade and drawing lessons until the third grade. Everything we visited with school was super old-fashioned. I think that little has changed in schools in these two years. I do think that many young people are more likely to come into contact with creativity via social media, nowadays you can simply follow your favourite artist or photographer on Instagram. Nevertheless, more attention should certainly be paid to creativity inschools. It is super important that creativity is stimulated, thereby you learn to look at things with a different perspective.

Have you been working on anything new recently?
We are always busy designing new items, ensuring dope content and organizing events. For us the most important thing is to surpass ourselves every time, the next shoot must be more challenging than the last.

In past interviews you have both spoken a lot about your willingness to experiment and develop as designers through risk taking, trial and error. How did this mindset come about? Was it something you both developed over time, or have you always rejected fear of failure? All of the clothes for LaFam are made in Amsterdam, how important is local production to the brand?
We’re not from a fashion school so we don’t know all the typical fashion rules that most of the brands follow. But we like it like that. We experiment with or own techniques, this gives us a different view to most brands. Our mindset changes over the time, just like our brand is changing. It’s cool, when you look back at our brand you can see how our skills have developed over time.

All of the clothes for LaFam are made in Amsterdam, how important is local production to the brand?
We’re not from a fashion school so we don’t know all the typical fashion rules that most of the brands follow. But we like it like that. We experiment with or own techniques, this gives us a different view to most brands. Our mindset changes over the time, just like our brand is changing. It’s cool, when you look back at our brand you can see how our skills have developed over time. Very important.

The fashion is an industry with many bad sides, especially if you look at the production in peripheral countries, they care little about sustainability and human rights in these places. I do not want to contribute to this. I know it is not the cheapest method, but I prefer to pay extra so that I know that my product is not made using child labour or by exploiting workers. I hope that many other brands will also start to do this in the future, not everything in the world is about money.

Has your experience of growing up in Amsterdam influenced your work? What has bonded you together so closely as siblings?Do you have any advice for young people wanting to start their own brands?
Definitely, we are born and raised in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is a city with a lot of culture. It is all there: art music, dance, poetry and of course, fashion; and it is only growing. It’s cool to see this progress, to see small clothing brands blow up. Whether it is conscious or unconscious the Amsterdam culture definitely inspires, and I hope I can introduce other parts of the world to the unique culture that exists in Amsterdam.

What has bonded you together so closely as siblings?Do you have any advice for young people wanting to start their own brands?
Definitely, we are born and raised in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is a city with a lot of culture. It is all there: art music, dance, poetry and of course, fashion; and it is only growing. It’s cool to see this progress, to see small clothing brands blow up. Whether it is conscious or unconscious the Amsterdam culture definitely inspires, and I hope I can introduce other parts of the world to the unique culture that exists in Amsterdam. We have been very close to each other since birth, we grew up in the same environment experiencing the same culture. We hang out with the same people, know the same art scene. A lot of things have bonded us together of course, our passion for fashion and creativity; but also, a lot of other things like humour, liking the same places, the family life.

Do you have any advice for young people wanting to start their own brands?
Definitely, we are born and raised in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is a city with a lot of culture. It is all there: art music, dance, poetry and of course, fashion; and it is only growing. It’s cool to see this progress, to see small clothing brands blow up. Whether it is conscious or unconscious the Amsterdam culture definitely inspires, and I hope I can introduce other parts of the world to the unique culture that exists in Amsterdam. We have been very close to each other since birth, we grew up in the same environment experiencing the same culture. We hang out with the same people, know the same art scene.

A lot of things have bonded us together of course, our passion for fashion and creativity; but also, a lot of other things like humour, liking the same places, the family life. Yes, remember that nothing just comes of itself, if you really want to succeed you have to work hard every day, so it’s important to be sure you have that motivation. In addition, you really do not have to do everything yourself. Look for people with whom you want to work. Make sure that you work with people who are just as driven as you are and that they really add something to your end product. Keep investing in yourself, work hard and never give up. Sooner or later you will be where you want to be, and don’t stress about people who are already beyond you. To focus on yourself that’s the most important thing.