Max Heymans (7 September 1918 – 20 September 1997), born Max Herman Heijmans, was a Dutch couturier. He is counted among the greatest among the Dutch couturiers. The Max Heymans ring is an oeuvre prize named after him.
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Nicolaas Witsenstraat 16, 1017 ZH Amsterdam, Netherlands
Joodse Begraafplaats
Muiderberg, Gooise Meren Municipality, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
Max Heymans (7 September 1918 – 20 September 1997), born Max Herman Heijmans, was a Dutch couturier. He is counted among the greatest among the Dutch couturiers. The Max Heymans ring is an oeuvre prize named after him.
Max Herman Heymans was born in Arnhem on 7 September 1918 as the son of Maurits Heijmans (died 1933) and Jans Catharina Dormits (1893–1945). He had an older brother, Meijer, who was born about a year before Max and he died as a baby. Mother remarried three years after Max's father died to Joseph Arje Lissauer (1892–1945).
Max grew up in a Jewish environment and his father had various professions, such as being a salesman in 1917 and a merchant in 1933. His father was also a trader in silk and other fabrics and that has become important for Max's career. Max walked around the house on weekends dressed as a little boy, including in his mother's dresses. He cut up all of his mother's clothes and made new creations with them. Father wasn't happy about that. "My father already felt that there was something feminine in me and he didn't like it. He didn't like the fact that his son walked around the house like a mannequin on Sunday mornings". That he had talent was noticed by three fashion stores in Arnhem, including Gerzon, and he was already a window dresser at the age of thirteen.
Max's father died in 1933 and Max and his mother (for Max his most beloved person in his life) moved to Amsterdam. Max went to work as a milliner. At the end of the 1930s he sold his creations through Maison de Bonneterie. He went back to work as a window dresser, this time at Hirsch & Cie on Leidseplein. Max went into hiding very early in the war. The reason for this was that in 1940 he saw two Jewish boys being arrested by the SD at the rowing club Poseidon. In hiding, materials were supplied to him by his friends, including his beloved Joop Knoppers, and he was able to continue working. His creations from that period were also sold.
Both his stepfather and his mother were murdered in the war. Max then decides to spell his name with a y from now on. After the war, Max gave his first fashion show in the Onyx restaurant of the American on the Leidseplein on August 30, 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s Max became increasingly popular in the Netherlands. He was a great couturier, but a bad businessman and his expenses were often higher than his income. He was regularly supported by wealthy friends.
In 1960 he opened a salon in Hirsch, a successful collaboration that lasted only two years. Hirsch's owners, Rob and René Kahn were maddened by the eccentric Heymans. In the early 1960s he bought a building on the Nicolaas Witsenstraat 16, and that was both a house and a studio. He became a famous couturier and on 19 September 1988 was appointed a Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Max's health was poor in his final years, but he continued to design and organize fashion shows into old age. In recent years they were often in restaurant Le Garage by Joop Braakhekke. In recent years, Braakhekke ensured that Max was fed daily and was well cared for. Despite the poor financial situation, he could be found every Tuesday in café Hoppe on the Spui where he drank beers and held an audience and where he regularly bumped into the Jewish artist Winston Citroen.
On August 20, 1997, a fire broke out due to a short circuit in an electric heater in his home on Witsenstraat. Max died a month later, on September 20, 1997, at the age of 79, from smoke poisoning that he had contracted as a result of this fire. He had no money left when he died. It was decided to bury him for free at Muiderberg, on September 22, 1997. A few months later, a sale of Heymans' belongings and dresses was organized.
The Max Heymans archive has been in the possession of the Municipal Museum of The Hague since 2003.
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