“Ecstasy, heroin, cocaine,” muttered through the lips of a scar-faced peddler. Narrow cobblestone streets littered with stumbling, drunken tourists. Red-hued windows decorated with women in various states of undress. These are images commonly associated with Amsterdam’s Red Light District. But not so for 2008. If you look up, you will increasingly find window displays filled with a different sort of industry: avant-garde, conceptual Dutch fashion, design and art.
In collaboration with the city of Amsterdam, NV Stadsgoed (a municipality property-owning company) and HTNK, a Dutch fashion consultancy and recruitment agency, the Red Light Fashion Project is one unlike any other happening in the Netherlands, much less anywhere else on the globe. In brief, NV Stadsgoed bought several brothels in the district, offering studio space and housing to young Dutch designers. The result is one year of rein-free creativity and production for the designers…and a breath of fresh air for the district.
Relative adolescents in the international fashion scene, the Dutch have increasingly made their footprint wider. But it’s not to say there “isn’t a lot going on in Dutch fashion,” says Bas Kosters, a DJ and designer well known for his bright, over-the-top work that ranges from clothing to baby carriages. “It was always known for being strict and conceptual, but it’s gently becoming more versatile and enthusiastic,” he offers, adding that Amsterdam now has its own International Fashion week, which is “a sign that Holland is really trying to put its design on the map.”
Participating designers in the project make every- and anything that ranges from fantastic dresses to socks, from shoes to accessories and even jeans held together with glue. Many designers also take turns at window design, leaving the five-story face of the CODE Gallery (a participating space owned by Dutch fashion magazine CODE) as quite the juxtaposition to the standard District fare. The result is head-turning, to say the very least. It offers visitors a break from the barrage of hookers and drugs, but it also offers respite to Amsterdam natives as well.
“As an ‘Amsterdammer,’ you never go to this district, because it is too sleazy and filled with tourists,” says Roswitha Van Rijn, the mind behind the Project’s only shoe designs. “But it is also the oldest and prettiest part of town! Putting us here really opens up the district.” Van Rijn also adds that the District’s girls are grateful to have a new place to go shopping, and she herself has found herself wandering into their window fronts for a chat.
Jan Taminiau, a designer of convertible women’s dresses, adds that “People who are buzzing by in the district are generally filled with testosterone. So, when they look up and see beautiful dresses in the window, it’s a shock.” Taminiau also commented on the evolution of the Project’s ability to clean the District up a bit.
“To say that the Red Light Fashion Project is ‘cleaning’ up the district is a bit much,” he says. “It’s grown too big, and they want to tone it down a bit. You have to remember that prostitution is a [vocational] industry in the Netherlands, just like any other. There is nothing illegal about it, but the city does have an interest in keeping a better grip on the situation.” And that’s where the Project steps in.
Perhaps the most salient quality of Dutch design in the Project is its conceptuality. Rarely have socks been so fascinating, or a pair of jeans so well thought out. As for Taminiau, his dresses are haute couture that are made to be re-configured “to ride a bike,” for instance. Inspired by his brother, who used to “put his underwear on his head and think it was the most beautiful hat in the world,” his design is a thoughtful play on the intersection of nostalgia and entertainment. In an American fashion world still somehow littered with skulls-and-crossbones and gladiator sandals, it all is a breath of fresh air for those of us who may never step foot in Amsterdam.
Gerrit Uittenbogaard is one-half of G+N, a collective of avant-garde designers “looking for new ways of dealing with clothing,” as he puts it. The mind behind Glue Jeans, the Project has offered him the time and space to come up with jeans that are wholly assembled with glue. “It wasn’t easy!” he laughs, but mentions that the project “has changed 150 years of how designing and modeling jeans has always been. [Sans] rivets or stitching, we have re-assembled [history] in a way.”
And while each handbag, boot, dress, sweater and belt on display in the project has its own history behind it, the way the designers were brought together was quite simple. “We were all already a part of a project called Turning Fashion Into Business (TIBS),” notes Van Rijn. “The designers selected for that project were the first to be called to the Red Light Fashion Project.”
Marietta Hoitink is the managing director of HTNK, and also the impetus behind the entire project. “Amsterdam has a great number of top fashion designers, but lacks affordable spaces to live and work in, as well as sufficient exhibition space,” she explains. “The project is a great opportunity for world-class professionals to finally show their work to a bigger audience, as well as live and work there.” And, when asked about the Project’s success, Hoitink’s response was exuberant:
“It has exceeded all expectations. What started as just giving temporary space to fashion designers has now become an example of what a private company (HTNK), creative people, the municipality and a real estate/housing corporation can achieve by working together to change the vision and opinion about a neighborhood.”
But it’s not to say that everything about the Project has been easy, per se. CODE owner Peter Van Rhoon notes that it takes a typical Dutch store (that is not in a main shopping area) about three years to get itself off the ground. “In this case, I agreed to become a part of the project on December 27, 2007. In a perfect world, we should have had triple the amount of time to do this correctly,” he argues. Van Rhoon adds that the second season should be a bit more organized, as they actually had more time to plan ahead.
But despite its growing pains, the store has managed in seven short months to do what few creative projects ever have. It has managed to marry modern art and design with a city’s government, corporate business, private business and the prostitution industry under an umbrella of affordable high-concept creations. And to that we say, Gefeliciteerd and Veel Geluk (Congratulations and Good Luck)!
We would like to thank Karlijn Bozon for her help with this story.
www.redlightfashionamsterdam.nl, www.baskosters.com, www.myspace.com/baskosters, www.code-mag.nl, www.codegallerstore.com, www.roswithavanrijn.nl, www.jantaminiau.nl, www.fashionfugitive.com, www.htnk.nl
Pull quotes:
“People who are buzzing by in the district are generally filled with testosterone. So, when they look up and see beautiful dresses in the window, it’s a shock.”
“There is nothing illegal about it, but the city does have an interest in keeping a better grip on the situation.”
