Denim City is yet again a very different space. It is in the recently renovated Den Hallen, an old industrial space that now contains hip but yummy food stands, a movie theater, a bike shop that works with developmentally disabled (an has some cool bike-bling), a hair cutting school, a neighborhood OBA library, and underground bicycle parking. AND it houses Denim City: a combination school, store, historical denim archive, and denim innovation space.
Denim City aims to raise the bar, reduce environmental impact, stimulate adoption of more sustainable innovations and bring the worldwide denim industry together under one roof.
The physical location was opened in May 2015 in De Hallen Amsterdam, one of the coolest locations of Europe. Denim City brings together our industry futures key stakeholders, brands, producers, mills, launderers, academics and students. The only way to re-invent our industry was through intense collaboration.
https://denimcity.org
The combination of retail, history, classroom, and functioning workshop is very Dutch, and very Amsterdam. It isn’t about doing one thing and one thing only, but it’s about exploring a material, technique, and tradition in depth, and furtheringthat work and knowledge. Denim is jeans, but it is also a history of the American west and it’s migrations, the mining industry, the politics of cotton, the science of dying, environmental impact of the industry, the mechanics of layout and patternmaking, the history of fashion, who fashion includes and excludes, and so much more. There was an exhibition of culminating work from their summer school, and their designs addressed many of these ideas.
As a space, it is a beautiful and open in a post-industrial setting. When you walk in there are bolts and bolts of different denims, large layout tables for cutting and prototyping (I would LOVE to have tables that big for Wearable Art students!), examples of the student work hanging from the ceiling, cases with historical denim, and in the back (not the front!!!) a variety of denim products from larger manufacturers for sale. On the sides are industrial sewing machines. Denim City is as much about the making and teaching part of the process as selling the products.
It reminds me of Ted Munter’s (former CSW English faculty and current Amsterdammer) question “why don’t we just make shoes?” (in regards to CSW). While I don’t claim to fully understand his meaning, the breadth of information you can learn from a task that seems deceptively simple is one worth exploring.
Making is learning not just the craft of a material, but also entrepreneurial skills, history, and concept.
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