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.

My point was this:  if you want to attract employment, develop local industry and train young people in crafts that are both fun to learn and useful for a career, why not focus on the international denim industry that is already successful in the Amsterdam region, rather than trying to attract ‘young creatives’ and ‘talented designers’ from an art/high-fashion background. Fair enough, they finally said: but how? This is when the ‘House of Denim’ project was born.

Against conventional logic, the core of the idea is to set up an artisanal, sustainable, small scale denim factory. After many interviews with experts and online discussions with industry leaders (read my report at http://tinyurl.com/lod893) this idea was scaled up to include an expertise center on buying/developing sustainable yarns, a museum-style exhibition, a development lab, sewing workshop and retail outlet. In essence the current idea is to set up an international hot-spot for sustainable denim development, which is also a crafts-based education project like Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, all based on our Love of Denim.

When you’ve finished laughing, you’ll probably be bemused, possibly even intrigued. This has been the reaction from most people so far: why on earth would you try to set up a factory to service an almost non-existent niche market, with no prior experience, weaving tradition, denim heritage nor posession of any of the required skills or funding?

For this blog posting, i’ll give only two replies. First of all, I argue that Almere essentially needs to be re-defined in the minds of many decision-makers. To do so requires imagination, inspiration and balls: go for something ambitious, fun and possibly a bit crazy: an injection of Jules Verne. What put Bilbao on the map? A weirdly-designed Museum. What do we know about Lillehammer? The Olympics. What sticks out in Paris? The Eiffel tower. None of these made any sense at the outset but look at their results. And let’s face it: compared to these three, a denim factory is easy

Secondly and probably most importantly though, is that the industry needs it. Did you know that 2000 gallons of clean water are required to produce a pair of jeans? No, not a swimming pool: a pair of jeans.  It doesn’t take a PhD in astro-physics to understand that there’s no way we can keep going on like this. So, we argue, in a city that has sustainability as one of its core principles, and a young population that almost permanently wears denim, situated next to one of the world denim industry capitals… why not set up an institute that aims to help solve denim’s Big Issues. No brand can take on the effort & responsibility of changing the industry, changing public perception and funding the innovation needed all on its own.

So there we have it: a project that combines Innovation, Brand Development and Co-creation, about denim, sustainability and Almere. We presented out intial findings last month, and are meeting Almere’s director of Economic Affairs this Wednesday.  I’m very interested to hear their Big Boss’s views on the project.

Stay tuned for more about the House of Denim project - and feel free to send me your thought & suggestions.