The Gardener
Bonne & Mien
By Emile Almekinders
Many people cherish a shoebox, a shelf, or even a whole garage filled with boxes that keep hold of our memories in the form of photo albums, video tapes, diaries or letters. They are storages of stories that reflect our lived lives and are the foundation of who we are today. We appreciate these objects as formative parts of our autobiographical identities. More than just personal mementos, these photos, videos, and written notes capture the relationships between people, offering insights into their collective identities.
One of those fascinating relationships is that of modernist gardener Mien Ruys and fashion designer Bonne Reijn. Under the watchful eyes of his mother Willemijn, and his great-aunt Mien, Bonne spent the summers of his first eight years of childhood in Dedemsvaart playing in the flower beds and jumping over Grion-tiles that his great-aunt had invented. Bonne, who grew up to be a designer himself, is one of those devoted shoebox cherishers. In fact, his work today is significantly influenced by his mental and physical archive of memories from his upbringing in the gardens. When Bonne was eight years old, his mother suddenly passed away, and within three months, his 94-year-old great-aunt Mien also passed away, leaving Bonne to live in the city with his foster parents. Keeping his childhood memories of the summers amidst the flowers in a treasure box filled with pictures, notes and letters.
For those unfamiliar with the name Mien Ruys, this celebrated garden icon is responsible for the design of over 3000 gardens that stretch out across the Netherlands and beyond. She is regarded as one of the most influential garden designers of the 20th century, making a significant mark on the way Dutch gardens look today. In the later part of her life, she was cared for by her niece Willemijn Ruys. Together with Willemijn’s son Bonne, they spent winters living together in Amsterdam on the Amstel, and moved to the east of the Netherlands to Mien’s monumental gardens in Dedemsvaart for the summers. Mien adored little Bonne and played a crucial role in his upbringing.
The first eight years living with Mien and Willemijn have influenced Bonne profoundly. Not only visually, like the logo of the brand that finds its origin in a drawing Willemijn made of Dutch farmers' clogs Bonne got from Mien, but also their ideological influence is transferred on.
When Bonne started his label BONNE SUITS at 24, you could immediately grasp the influence of his first years in the gardens. The farmer’s overall he used to wander around in as a toddler became the starting point for his endeavors in the world of fashion. He used the workwear overall as inspiration to create a versatile garment that would go against fashions vices. One single garment that would fit every size, gender, age, occasion and social expectation, with long lasting quality, Bonne proposed an accessible alternative to the status obsessed industry whilst countering its problematic overconsumption and overproduction.
Mien, who enjoyed her studies in Berlin during the flourishing years of the Bauhaus Movement, was largely influenced by the modernist ideas of the time. When she went back to the Netherlands to start a career of her own, the modernist zeitgeist had given root to Dutch design movements such as De Stijl, De 8 and Opbouw. Mien conquered a place of her own amidst the mostly male modernist architects, artists and designers. She started working with Gerrit Rietveld, Aldo van Eyck and Hein Salomonson amongst others to design the gardens to go with their buildings. With these collaborations, she stretched the notion of the place landscape architecture held within the architectural process. She made the garden an integral part instead of just a mere afterthought, crossing borders and blurring the lines between disciplines. Much like the modernist architecture of the time, her gardens were defined by the use of straight geometrical lines, and the idea that good design should be available for everyone, regardless of social status. Over her 75-year career, Mien created dozens of garden designs for social housing, transforming an elitist hobby into something accessible to a broad range of people. To facilitate easy maintenance of the gardens for the newbies, she emphasized perennials combined with seasonal plants and ‘trouble-free’ greenery, ensuring that her designs would be long-lasting and beautiful in all seasons. Mien was also the first to introduce ready-made flower borders, making it easily accessible for people to create their own Mien Ruys garden.
In her many books, Mien encouraged and educated people from all backgrounds to explore gardening, providing them with tools and knowledge that extended beyond flower planting and maintenance. She offered insights into approaching the entire outdoor space, from soil to sunlight. Mien also edited and published Onze Eigen Tuin, (Our Own Garden), a magazine where she shared ideas that resonated across various fields, fostering cross-pollination between landscape design, architecture, and home gardening.
Bonne's work does remind a lot of the modernist approach of his great-aunt. From the geometrical shapes and clear lines of his clothing silhouettes to the emphasis on making his designs accessible to all, his work is defined by crossing borders and building bridges between different people with different backgrounds. Just like Mien, he is inviting people into his world by providing easy-access gateways. Where Mien would make high-end gardening accessible for ordinary people, Bonne is democratizing fashion with his workwear suits, stripping away status and solely focussing on the human aspect. In his flagship store, Bonne also houses an art gallery, a music studio and a bookstore. They are all operating within the same space, forcing its visitors to interact with each other. People who come to buy a suit run into a book launch, or bump into an artist who is recording in the studio downstairs, forging new connections.
This year marks the 100-year anniversary of the famous Gardens of Mien Ruys in Dedemsvaart and a decade of BONNE SUITS. After 10 years of offering just one silhouette, the brand is launching seasonable collections that provide a wide range of garments that are designed with the same intention of dressing anyone for every occasion, with long lasting quality. It comes as no surprise that the first collection is an ode to the wardrobe of Mien Ruys and is titled The Gardener. The collection delves into the legacy of Mien and celebrates the collective identity of creative entities Mien Ruys and Bonne Reijn.