Get to Know Urban Nature Culture & Anne Marie Hermans
Learn about our new designer Anne Marie Hermans in five pictures and an interview.
- URBAN NATURE CULTURE @ X BANK
- ANNE MARIE HERMANS
- DESIGNER HOUSE
- FAVE PLACE
- ATELIER
- Urban Nature Culture
Urban Nature Culture is owned by Anne Marie Hermans and run by a close-knit
team, which includes her husband. Everyone is dedicated to what they are best at
and every decision is considered by the whole team. The company was born out of
the idea that we all love having nice products but we care about the ethical
implications of how they are made. They focus on using the right raw materials and
honest wages.
- Anne Marie Hermans
Anne Marie Hermans is the proud owner of Urban Nature Culture and truly the great
mind behind it. She is inspired by her passion for the world, which she was partly
born with and partly developed with her travels around the world. While traveling,
she discovers beauty, people and production methods which she all combines in
her new collections.
At the moment, Anne Marie is working on her newest project, which we are very
happy to announce. Urban Nature Culture is collaborating with Renewi (a company
who works on giving value to waste) and the Kringloop (the biggest secondhand
retail chain of the Netherlands). Urban Nature culture is selecting secondhand
porcelain from Kringloop, and Renewi developed a glaze made out of domestic
waste (the waste is burned and becomes ash, from which they make a glaze). The
selection of porcelain will be glazed with the recycled glaze. The result? A 100%
circular collection.
- Her own house
She is very happy and proud of her monumental building in the center of
Amsterdam, where she lives on the top floor with a view over the city. Before
becoming a monument, the building had quite a path. Originally, it hosted the office
of a printing company. During the Second World War, it got confiscated by the
Germans and afterwards it was occupied by squatters. Eventually, it got declared
as a monument and it has a loft on every floor. The building has a lot of history and
personality.
- Anne Marie’s Favourite and Inspiring place
Anne Marie’s favorite place is UXUA, a hotel by Wilbert Das, Diesel Jeans’ former
creative director. UXUA is situated in Trancoso near Porto Seguro, a small harbor
town in the region of Bahia, Brazil. Porto Seguro means safe harbor is Portuguese,
coming from when the town was a Portuguese colony and it was the harbor where
slave ships arrived from Africa.
Brazil has always been a source of inspiration and a place where she felt belonging.
When Anne Marie was 18 years old, she visited the country for the first time and fell
in love with it. Afterwards, she lived in Brazil for five years. It was a formative period
for her.
- Where it All Happens: The Atelier
The atelier of Urban Nature Culture is situated in Amsterdam’s IJburg. They
implement specific sustainable practices in creating each product. For example,
their mango wood comes from mango trees after they’re not able to give fruits
anymore. The trees that they use grow in Vietnam, India or Indonesia. Every product
they make is completely developed by Urban Nature Culture. In the picture, you
can see Ingeborg Roelands, head of design, at work.
