Fashion & Design
Where can we find the most creative people in the Netherlands? In Cool Region Arnhem Nijmegen! This region has a creative ‘industry’ that is almost as big as the building industry, education and health care. Fashion originated in Arnhem and is world famous.
Attractive climate
Cool Region Arnhem Nijmegen harbours many creative persons like artists and people with a free profession. They publish books or develop software or are into advertising, design, music, or performing arts. A quarter of Arnhem’s working population belongs to the creative ‘industry’, and a third of Nijmegen’s working population. In the Netherlands there is only the city of Utrecht that has more professional practitioners in creative fields of occupation.
Potential breeding grounds around the inner city are mainly old industrial estates. In Nijmegen it is usually Koers West and in Arnhem the Coberco-quarter. The historical quarter Klarendal in Arnhem is popular especially for fashion designers.
Cool Region also has numerous collective industrial buildings with an attractive climate for young entrepreneurs. Cool Region encourages the development of these economic activities.
Read more about fashion.
Innovation
The creative sector has
always been receptive to progress and innovation, and there are many nice
instances of this in Cool Region Arnhem Nijmegen.
Some of the designs of couturier
Hussein Chalayan look more like sculptures than wearable trousers
or dresses. Chalayan designs clothes made of glass fibre and does so in
cooperation with a building consultant.
Ford KartEZ is the name
of a limited edition of the Ford Ka city car. The special leather interior of
this popular car was designed by students of the Arnhem Academy of Art and
Design together
with the companies Ford Nederland and Cabarra.
To make fashion more sustainable, the Brennels
company grows
nettles on a large scale for making fashionable fabrics. It is a modern
alternative for the traditional cultivation of cotton of which we know that it
is harmful to living creatures and the environment. Brennels has its own plantation
and develops an innovative production process for nettle fashion. The trendy
collection – so far for women only – will be designed by Rianne de Witte. The
shop in Arnhem will soon get a branch in the province of Flevoland.
Fashion as an economic factor
Fashion is an important economic factor in the Arnhem Nijmegen Cool Region. That is why further development of the fashion industry is an important spearhead. A large-scale research will be conducted to gain better understanding of how fashion contributes to economy and culture.
In the next five years, researchers attached to Radboud University Nijmegen and the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design will go into the question how fashion is related to identity, why it is that some brands are successful and other designs not, and into the economic flows in fashion land. In fact, the researchers want to find out how the Netherlands can improve its position in fashion land.
The name of the research is ‘Dutch fashion in a globalised world’. The Dutch organisation for Scientific Research awarded € 550,000 and the business sector also contributes towards this research.
