They wore the bonnets. The bonnets did not wear them. Always on the cutting edge of fashion, the precocious Janssen twins took Tulip Time in stride. While other children suffered silently through Holland Michigan’s annual tribute to het moederland, donning traditional Dutch caps and clogs with a resigned Ik zal handhaven, the twins took it to a whole new level. With their motto of “double the irony” the girls artfully parodied the archetypes and idioms of Dutch fashion, turning Hans and Gretel Brinker into postmodern caricatures that both mocked and celebrated the nationalistic zeal of this quaint patriotic pastime. Wooden shoes became haute couture. A windmill wasn’t just a windmill. Here, the twins wear prototypes for their “Escher” collection in which they skillfully utilized their identical appearances to confuse and subvert the viewer’s perspective; who was the meisje, and who was the mirror? Western Michigan never knew what hit them.
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