From 1 to 5 September, Amsterdam Fashion Week is back with more than forty shows and presentations taking over the city. We have followed and covered AFW in previous editions, but this year things feel different: for the first time, METAL will officially become part of its programme. And it happens at a particularly special moment for us, as we continue celebrating twenty years of the magazine while already working non-stop on our next print issue.
Twenty years in this industry deserve a celebration, or quite a few of them. However busy things get behind the scenes, we have been determined to make room to share this milestone with the creative communities we have met, worked with and grown alongside around the world. After celebrating together in Madrid and Barcelona earlier this year, our next stop takes us north. Amsterdam, here we come.
There is a reason we wanted to bring the anniversary here. We believe in the potential of Amsterdam and in a creative scene that continues to develop its own voice. Fashion doesn't exist in isolation here, and that is part of the appeal. Music, art and nightlife constantly find their way into the conversation, while a new generation is building its own spaces and questioning what a fashion week can look like.
So this September, we are taking things one step further. Together with Pulitzer Amsterdam , we will celebrate this new chapter by joining the official AFW event programme for the first time. We could hardly have found a better ally in the city for such a special moment, so keep an eye on our channels over the coming days to make sure you don't miss anything! We hope there will be more destinations to add to that list soon, but for now, we have five very busy days ahead of us.
Our own celebration is only one small part of a programme that gives us plenty of reasons to come back. What makes this edition particularly interesting is everything happening around the runways. AFW spreads across the city through exhibitions, talks and unexpected spaces, creating plenty of reasons to move around Amsterdam between shows. The result is a programme that opens itself up to different sides of the local creative scene and gives us much more to explore than a succession of collections.
Camiel Fortgens is taking that idea quite literally. For their SS27 show, they head to an Albert Heijn supermarket after regular opening hours, with models moving through the aisles while employees are still stacking shelves. Anyone who lives in the Netherlands, or has spent more than a few weeks here, will know that Albert Heijn is practically part of Dutch culture, making it a very fitting setting. Elsewhere, Bonne collaborates with legendary Dutch graphic designer Karel Martens on The Biker, drawing from Zeedijk queer icon Bet van Beeren and biker culture.
There is also another twentieth anniversary happening this week. Lichting celebrates two decades of introducing emerging Dutch designers to the industry, with ten new graduates presenting their collections at the Rijksmuseum. Its history includes names such as Duran Lantink, Lisi Herrebrugh and Karim Adduchi, but what interests us most is that the anniversary is being used to look forward, too. Twenty years means considerably more when the next generation is already knocking at the door.
That anniversary also runs through The Hub26, taking place at Rivvia on 3 and 4 September. Open to the public, it is one of the places where AFW becomes easier to enter and experience. Vintage and independent local labels share the space with workshops and repair stations, while the programme encourages visitors to engage with clothes beyond simply buying something new.
There are conversations worth making time for too. Patta co-founder Guillaume “Gee” Schmidt and Filling Pieces founder Guillaume Philibert Chin will discuss fashion's digital future, while Botter's Lisi Herrebrugh joins a talk about the international development of Dutch talent. Another conversation tackles something less glamorous but increasingly urgent: what it actually takes to keep an independent fashion brand alive. Sabine Marcelis will also discuss the meeting point between fashion and design alongside SolidNature's David Mahyari.
Then there is the side of Amsterdam that has little interest in going home early. The Patchwork Family celebrates its fifth anniversary at Paradiso with a Best Of show followed by The Grand Family Affair. On Saturday, AFW officially closes at the Westerkerk before The Gang Is Beautiful x Grey Men continue at Club Raum, putting the underground communities that constantly feed fashion back at the centre of the conversation.
And these are only a few of the things already on our radar. The New Originals joins forces with filmmaker and creative director Ebeneza Blanche, Wandler collaborates with Puss Puss, and Eva Korsten introduces Fortanier after leading the creative vision of Yume Yume. Hungry Eye Fair brings photography into the week, while Oscam welcomes London-based designer and artist Bevan Agyemang for his Dutch debut.
And there is much more. The programme runs from morning until well into the night, moving between established names and a new generation still carving out its place. Vrij Paleis Open, for example, gives six graduating designers from leading Dutch academies their own runway, while The Creative Lab brings together nine emerging designers for another look at what could come next.
That is ultimately why coming back to Amsterdam feels particularly exciting this year. Of course we want to see the shows, but we are just as interested in everything happening around them. Sometimes discovering someone whose name you had never heard before is considerably more exciting than sitting through another predictable show.
For the first time, we also get to add our own small piece to that landscape. Twenty years into METAL, looking back has reminded us how much has changed, but celebrating this anniversary has mostly reinforced why we are still here. There are always new people worth meeting and new ideas worth making space for. Amsterdam, we'll see you very soon!
