AMSTERDAM: Amsterdam’s famous red-light district transformed into a catwalk on Saturday with designers parading their creations in what were once brothels, as the city tries to clean crime from the quarter.
Beautiful people chattered to each other over top of the blaring music and speeches as models in extravagant outfits graced what up until recently was primarily home to the world’s oldest profession.
This event was prepared along one of the Dutch capital’s canals and a domain of prostitution. Fuelling the change was the municipality’s aim to release the area from the clutch of crime and gangs.
Amsterdam is famous for its red-light district — known in Dutch as the Wallen — for more than 100 years, although prostitution has only been legal in the Netherlands since 2000. However, armed with new laws enabling the closure of establishments suspected to be involved in criminal activity, the city last year bought 55 buildings — where brothels were housed — from a former prostitution baron.
The city was then in need of a new activity to subsequently bring new life to the buildings. “During a working visit from the municipal authorities in the area last April, I suggested: ‘Why don’t you put fashion designers here?’,” explained Mariette Hoitink, director of fashion agency HTNK.
A few months later, the city took her up on the idea and asked her to find interested 20 designers — thereby giving birth to the project “Red Light Fashion Amsterdam”.
“I have no shortage of candidates! I could have put in students or young people in trouble, but I chose to put confirmed talent there,” said Hoitink. According to Hoitink, the well-known designers are grateful for the assistance the project has brought them.
