Together with my clients I create awareness and a better understanding of the content of one’s wardrobe. Who are you and how do you best communicate this through clothing? During the wardrobe session(s) we explore the relation between identity, fashion and consumption practices. The result is that I create more choice with less clothing.

The masterclass is organised by the Sandberg Instituut and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum. Every edition gets a different, contemporary theme. Eight anti-disciplinary teams work on concepts for new media applications which they present to the industry as a kick off at the end of the six-month period. Since 2017 I am the coordinating producer.

Designer Conny Groenewegen and I have known each other for quite a while but it wasn’t until 2017 that I started working for her as her studio manager. The collaboration is a creative partnership. Together we have created a long-term vision and deal with shorter-term practicalities. I also take care of finances, fundraising, planning, logistics and external partnerships.

As the coordinator of the Design Department, I have the supervision over 25 students, 10 tutors and numerous guest-tutors. I am responsible for internal and external communication, tutoring students, contracts, administration and financing. Furthermore, I organise the department’s book publications, produce the yearly graduation exhibition and collaborate with the director of the department on programming and evaluations.

A conversation with Pascale Gatzen feels like attending an inspiring lecture by an animated professor. Fashion according to Gatzen is not outside us: we are fashion. We live and experience fashion and thus we continuously make fashion together. “It’s about our position in society and how we relate to others”. In 2016 I interviewed Pascale Gatzen as part of the Temporary Fashion Museum at Het Nieuwe Instituut.

As a production coordinator (2013, 2014 and 2015 edition), I have been responsible for managing the festival ground, coordinating the fair logistics, communication with partners and artists, as well as producing the fair ground. Unseen is an international photography fair and festival focused on undiscovered photography talent and unseen work by established photographers.

Together with Berber Soepboer (designer) and Eveline Prins (fundraiser) I co-founded the Stichting Wad & Design in June 2014. Goal of the foundation is to strengthen the relationship between fashion, design, architecture and the experience of natural environment. As production manager, my role within this project was to coordinate the program and financing.

Curating and coordinating the Wad & Design exposition (2014) with a selection of the work from the seven Dutch designers shown during the actual festival at Schiermonnikoog in September 2013. Afterwards, we arranged the exposition into a shopping window in the shopping centre of Leeuwarden where it was on display for another month.

Paper written for the symposium ‘Fashion Colloquia AMFI 2014’. Theme: ‘New Conversations in Fashion’. Topic of the publication is the repositioning of Vlisco as a ‘global fashion brand’. Described is how three different contexts meet: production country The Netherlands, consumer market Central- and West Africa and an up and coming ‘fashionable Africaness’ in the West.

Since November 2013 I have been writing blogs for FoA. First of August. Also, both in 2013 and 2014 I have presented two research projects (‘Styling Beyond the Nation’ and ‘Islamic Fashions’) during FoA. Academy, a platform for young intellectuals to connect fashion, cultures and social trends to sociological insights.

Production of a fashion show, presentation and photoshoot in the Tropenmuseum Amsterdam (May 2013). Taste points literally and metaphorically to the flavour of life. It concerns processes of communion through style or knowledge. Designs were shown by the Ghanaian designers ajePomaa Design Gallery, Christie Brown, deDo, Duaba Serwa, K’NAF Couture and Mina Evans.

Book publication (2013) as a result of the research ‘Sustainable Design as a Powerful Force to Change’. The book deals with themes that are of particular relevance in today’s discussion of sustainability. Can ‘Slow-Fashion’ really provide the notion of fashion with a new value interpretation? How do new ways of producing fashion result in new sustainable business models?

Dutch professionals and experts working on heritage projects in or with Ghana gathered in order to exchange experience and knowledge on projects and activities in the field of Ghanaian- Dutch Mutual Cultural Heritage. Within the program my role was to present the relation of up and coming Ghanaian fashion designers with (current day Ghanaian) cultural heritage.

Ethnographic research (2012) about how inspiration is translated into ready-to-wear collections by up and coming Ghanaian fashion designers. Research is conducted on how they are influenced by the market and how, at the same time, they influence the market. What do notions and concepts such as ‘Western’, ‘African’, ‘global’ and ‘local’ mean and how are these translated into clothing designs?

Scientific publication (2012) in Emerald, Journal of Islamic Marketing as a result of the research ‘Islamic Fashions in the Netherlands’. Focus in the article is the market segmentation of Dutch Muslim women wearing the veil. How, as a company, do you create valuable products for this specific consumer group? What is their linking value and what are important glue values?

Research (2011) on fashion and sustainability as part of the symposium ‘A Fashion Odyssey’ during the Arnhem Mode Biennale. Are fashion and sustainability, because of the extremely high turnover rate of the former and the slow approach of the latter, a paradox? How do you employ this paradox in collection design and how do you, as a designer, involve a consumer in this process?

Curating and producing ‘A Fashion Odyssey’ (2011). Premsela, the Netherlands Institute for Design and Fashion, commissioned three young Dutch designers – Elsien Gringhuis, Iñiy Sanchez and Berber Soepboer – to elaborate the relationship between fashion and durability. The end result was presented in an exhibition during Arnhem Mode Biennale.

Literature study (2010) about the current fashion industry in Ghana. How it is influenced by traditional Ghanaian clothing on the one hand and by global and/or ‘Western’ fashion on the other hand. Tradition seems to be unchangeable, the fashion industry is constantly changing. How are these seemingly paradoxical processes merging in Vlisco’s fabric designs?

Qualitative trend report and target group analysis (2008) amongst Dutch Muslim women between the age of 15 and 25. Based on different observations five categories (‘consumer tribes’) were developed. How do they use the veil in expressing their identity and what are the reasons for these young Muslim women to wear the veil?

During both the Winter as well as the Summer fair in 2007 I have curated and coordinated the MODEFABRIEK SUPERSTORE and the MODEFABRIEK TERMINAL respectively. Both were temporary design department stores/platforms with the works of up-and-coming Dutch and international designers (both fashion as well as design and photography).