LOVE FOR DENIM

Love for Denim. And…Almere ?

One of our current projects combines just about all my professional fields of interest, as well as one of my strongest personal passions. I’m as surprised as anyone to find two of its main components to be ‘the City of Almere’ (a relatively new town to the right of Amsterdam) and ’sustainability’.

Due to my former role as program director of Amsterdam International Fashion Week, i’m regularly asked to take part in discussions on economic & regional policy, especially relating to the development of creative industries and fashion business. During one of such discussions with the ambitious Economic Affairs team from the City of Almere, we got talking about one of my favourite topics : Jeans. Read the rest of this entry »

Inspiration from Barcelona

Last week, I had the opportunity to join 50 other delegates in the annual Amsterdam Partners network trip to the wonderful city of Barcelona. The group - as always - consisted of influential civil servants, entrepreneurs and ‘players behind the scenes’ from in and around Amsterdam, and we met up with our counterparts from Barcelona.

The trip was loosely organised around the topic “the Olympic Games as a catalyst for Urban Development”; very interesting indeed. The program consisted of a number of formal and informal presentations, a visit to Camp Nou, a supernice bicycle tour around the newer parts of town, some great food, some bad Karaoke (involving a certain mayor whose name will not be disclosed) and a flamenco dancing course. Great.