Do you think being showy is the secret to being seen?
Well, not really. Let’s talk about that!

I am a designer, but half of me has been an artistic gymnastics coach since 2008, a lifelong sport and passion.

As coaches we train girls and young women on a daily basis and with them we obviously also see their training outfits.
After looking around for years in all the gyms, on social media, in gymnastics clothing catalogs, in short everywhere, I realized something…

I noticed that over the years the idea that “more” is better has spread, and with that, rainbows of colors juxtaposed together in an unlikely way, more different materials combined together and above all glitters on glitters, especially for the competition leotards.
Apparently there is this idea that the brighter you are, the more you will be noticed and the more you will be able to shine. This is a pity.

I started to reflect on this and ideas started to pop up based on the concept that less is more instead.

Gymnastics, in fact, is exactly this: a very complicated study that leads to the search for essentiality.
The more the lines are simple and well defined, the more gymnastic is close to perfection.
The difficult thing is this: to simplify.

Simplifying is a challenge because when you remove more and more, then you must be able to balance harmony of shapes and proportions.

Master Achille Castiglioni used to say: 
“Delete, delete, delete and at the end find the true core of the design”.

This was the thing: in my opinion a refined simplicity was totally missing in training leotards.
Essentially the idea of simplicity was missing.

 

The first collection: simplicity is the new sophistication

At TURNZ Amsterdam Gymnastics we have created this collection of leotards that was designed to promote the TURNZ brand, not only as a successful Amsterdam top-level club in artistic gymnastics run by Claudia Werkhoven and Wolther Kooistra, but also to promote its innovative and revolutionary philosophy, especially in our current historical sporting period. 
“Kindness is power”, “Dream it, do it”, “Shine from within” are the three powerful slogans we have created together with TURNZ communication specialist Femke Lutgerink, to celebrate this new project.

Clean lines, a balanced combination of colors, essential graphics and a single material characterize this leotard collection.
Simplicity is timeless and for the record, no, you don’t need glitter to shine!

 
 
 

“Shine from within” is one of the slogans of this campaign and I wanted this concept to shine through in our photographs as well: 

Fake smiles and static poses?
No thanks! We celebrate natural beauty!

 
 

With a great teamwork and with the talented Yara Jimmink we took these pictures that demonstrate how powerful a look, a gesture, a clean face can be, without makeup, without glitter.
I wanted to promote the idea that your strength is essentially you and I believe these images speak for themselves.

Believe me you don’t need anything else than you to shine.
Serínda

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