Studio Anneleen Bertels offers consultancy for textile & embroidery design, but also works on the execution of bespoke pieces.
The Lab zooms into the art of embroidery in all its facets:
Yarns: from natural and local resources, innovative fibers
Beads: experimenting and creating own unique beads from all kind of reclaimed, recycled and precious materials
Techniques: research for new textile techniques within embroidery applications
The in-house savoir-faire: bead embroidery such as needlework & with Luneville hook, Broderie d’Or
She zooms into the art of embroidery in all its facets: yarns, beads and techniques. Yarns from natural and local resources and innovative fibers. Experimenting and creating own unique beads from all kind of reclaimed, recycled and precious materials. Research for new textile techniques within embroidery applications.
Thanks to Anneleen's contemporary vision on traditional textiles and today's challenges, the Studio wants to contribute to a more holistic textile industry and especially transmit this knowledge.
The Lab's methodology is to design from the material and technique itself; pushing and twisting the properties, limitations and possibilities by entangling textile, embroidery and jewelry techniques.
She imagines how she can merge artisanal techniques with more innovative and industrial techniques to create a dialogue between the artisanal and the machine made.
The Lab collaborates with highly skilled artisans such as - goldsmiths, stonecutters, Japanese kasuri weavers, banana fiber craftsmen, braiding & ropemaking artisans - to intertwine traditional knowledge and innovative techniques, exchange material expertise and create new material applications.
Thanks to the realisation of various projects she gained professional experiences to be able to execute projects with high precision, sensibility for contemporary craftsmanship, cultural exchanges & collaborations.
“With my work I create a contemporary vision on what embroidery can be, now and in the future. I want to interweave textile cultures and achieve innovative craftsmanship. I want to manifest a physical form of poetry.”
Anneleen Bertels is a Belgian textile designer and researcher based in Brussels.
After graduating in Fashion Design at Artez University of the Arts in 2013, Anneleen worked as a fashion designer and product developer for several major fashion houses such as Balenciaga, Maison Martin Margiela and Ann Demeulemeester.
By working with goldsmiths, she got interested in merging fashion with jewellery & accessories design for creating new textile applications and embellishments.
Since the founding of her own Lab in January 2022, she develops “Jewellerized textiles”: textile work embellished or mended through embroidery with jewellery pieces.
Her practice draws on a deeply intellectual, dauntless and poetic research ranging from redefining traditional haute couture embroidery techniques to experimenting with innovative production methods.
Her work positions tactile, microscopic beauty within a political and philosophical picture of global issues like sustainability, cultural heritage and technological innovation.
Anneleen’s work has been published and exhibited, most notably by the Hyères Festival of Fashion, Brussels Jewellery Week, Parcours Bijoux in Paris and most recently her solo-exhibition on Japanese textile crafts at the Embassy of Japan in Brussels.
She has taught as a guest lecturer at Beckmans Designhögskola in Stockholm, Aalto University in Helsinki, KASK School of Arts in Ghent, Artez University of the Arts in the Netherlands, and College of Art & Design in Brussels.
Anneleen aims at collaborating more with goldsmiths, architects or engineers to manifest a physical form of poetry by integrating embroidery into more architectural scales and other disciplines.
