Fashion, tech, art and music. All these elements come together in the dress created by fashion designer Maartje Dijkstra and composer/producer Beorn Lebenstedt for Museum Speelklok. ‘This really is our magnus opus.’ It’s the most complex project that fashion designer Maartje and her friend and music producer Beorn have ever worked on: AU-2-MATERIA, an haute couture dress for Museum Speelklok. The creation is based on the museum’s most prestigious item – the royal Clay Clock dating from 1738. It comprises a huge brass musical cylinder and organ work that plays a melody every three hours. ‘The marvellous thing about this dress is that it also plays music,’ says Maartje. ‘This is a theme in all my work. To me, music is inextricably bound up with fashion. It creates an atmosphere: the sounds reflect my vision and support my installations.’ Lady Gaga Maartje studied fashion design at ArtEZ in Arnhem. She did an internship at Alexander McQueen in Londen, where her interest in haute couture continued to develop. After graduating, she decided not to work for one of the major fashion houses, but to start her own label. In the years that followed, she worked with famous artists including Daan Roosegaarde. In fact, Lady Gaga even wore one of her creations. ‘I create hand-made haute couture, spending around a thousand hours on just one dress,’ says Maartje. Her work always features technology. ‘I once produced a design that drones flew out of. And I’ve incorporated electroluminescence into another dress by integrating custom-made light panels into it, which I then controlled via a computer.’ Maartje isn’t a traditional artist, but more of an innovator. ‘I’m always looking for new ways to make things. That’s why I’ve spent the last ten years specialising in 3D-printing dresses by hand. Not using a printer, but a so-called 3D print pen.’ Time-consuming This technique was also used to create AU-2-MATERIA, the installation that Maartje and Beorn made for Museum Speelklok. ‘It was a thrilling, but very complicated, process. Working with a 3D print pen is time-consuming, laborious work. Warm plastic flows out of the pen, which you can then set into whatever shape you like. I build up the structure of a design gradually by joining up small pieces of printed plastic. The main advantage is that the pen enables me to determine the exact shape of my dresses and I can reproduce practically anything that I’ve thought up.’ But the creations must also be able to produce music, and that makes things even more complicated, Maartje continues. ‘Powering the music tape across the whole dress was a real challenge. We copied some book music: a sheet of cardboard with holes punched in, as used in barrel organs. The holes are punched in specific places and control which notes are played. We 3D printed the sheet, and it’s powered by tiny motors. The sheet passes tiny switches, which send the information to a speaker system containing synthesizers. The synthesizers play the electronic music produced by Beorn.’ Gold, gold, gold The Baroque Clay Clock, the figurehead of Museum Speelklok’s collection that originally inspired the AU-2-MATERIA, was designed by Charles Clay. ‘the German Händel was one of the composers whose music he always programmed into his organ clocks,’ Beorn explains. ‘So I based my electronic music for the dress on Händel’s melodies. I had to rein myself during the composition, as the mechanics are fairly limited.’ Having said this, the installation itself certainly doesn’t hold back. Maartje: ‘Everything is gold – not just the dress, but all the thread, motors, cogs and wheels, the speaker and even the computer. We only realised how many different types of gold there are while working on this project. It’s bizarre!’ The transparent ‘veil’ draped over the dress is a reference to the canopy on the Clay Clock. ‘In the past, it took several people to lift the canopy, because it’s incredibly heavy. That’s why I chose a hoisting system to lift the transparent ‘veil’ in this installation, revealing the golden dress underneath.’ Crow funding The dress was made possible partly thanks to crowd funding. It cost €8,000 to complete this spectacular musical haute couture dress and get it working. The money needed (and more) was raised within a month, so Maartje and Beorn can continue working. At the time of writing this article, they were carrying out the final tests. Beorn: ‘The programming must be perfect, so that all the motors and cogs coordinate and run smoothly.’ The pair can’t wait for visitors to come and admire their installation. Maartje. ‘I think everyone will love it: children and adults. A model will wear the dress during the opening, which is really exciting. This installation really is our magnus opus.’ From May 2025, Museum Speelklok, museumspeelklok.nl Location Museum Speelklok From carillon clocks to self-playing musical instruments. Museum Speelklok is the most musical museum in the Netherlands! View location