Circular Fashion: Design, Science and Value in a Sustainable Clothing Industry

Prof.dr.ir. Louise O. Fresco is the President of the Executive Board of Wageningen University & Research in The Netherlands. Louise combines a long academic career as a professor at Wageningen and other institutions with an extensive involvement in policy and development, with many programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America and teaching in Sweden, Belgium and the US. Louise O. Fresco is a member of eight Scientific Academies and holds three honorary doctorates.

Dr. Kim Poldner is a Professor of Circular Business at The Hague University of Applied Sciences and serial entre-searcher in sustainable fashion. Kim has published in top academic journals, such as the Journal of Business Venturing, Organization and Business & Society and has written award-winning case studies on sustainable fashion pioneers, such as Veja and Osklen.

Dr. Nishant Shah is a feminist, humanist, technologist who works as the Vice-President Research at the ArtEZ University of the Arts. He is committed to building resilient futures, equitable societies, and critical diversity, through a de-disciplined multi-stakeholder knowledge system. His new work is in examining our current conditions of digital information overload as one of ‘aesthetic warfare’ and the role of arts in a future world.

Paulien Harmsen, MSc, is senior scientist at Wageningen Food and Biobased Research. She has a background in chemical engineering and combines process design and material science to solve complex biorefinery issues, both for natural materials as for post-consumer waste streams like textiles. In her role as Expertise Leader Biomass Fractionation, she coordinates the project portfolio and gives shape to the strategy. She is project leader and co-editor of the booklet series ‘Groene Grondstoffen’.

Dieuwertje de Wagenaar MSc, content coordinator Circular Fashion Lab, Wageningen University & Research. As graduated engineer in transdisciplinary urban challenges, she has specialized herself in circular economy, local production, urban waste management and innovation for circular fashion. Parts of her research ‘reMade in Amsterdam’ have been included in the course. Behind the scenes, she has been the content coordinator of the entire course. An encompassing role, which allowed her to develop open access education about her biggest passion, circular fashion.

Dr. Daniëlle Bruggeman holds a PhD in Cultural Studies and is Professor of Fashion at ArtEZ University of the Arts. She teaches at both the MA Fashion Strategy and the MA Fashion Design at ArtEZ, and leads the Centre of Expertise Future Makers. The publication Dissolving the Ego of Fashion: Engaging with Human Matters (2018, published by ArtEZ Press) presents the main research themes of the ArtEZ Fashion Professorship. The Fashion Professorship aims to develop critical theories and practices in order to explore, better understand, and rethink the cracks in the fashion system.

Dr. Jeroen van den Eijnde is professor Product Design & Interior Architecture at ArtEZ University of the Arts. He was trained as a product designer and art historian. His specialisation concerns design education related to design theory and methods. He is project manager of ArtEZ Future Makers which aims to develop sustainable and circular value chains for textile, fashion and interior architecture.

Tjeerd Veenhoven, designer. In the quest for meaningful purpose and motivated by a social and sustainable mandate from the global consumer, designers have to become more knowledgeable on the entire lifespan of a product. A complicated task that needs many Best Practice projects to expand this ‘philosophy’. Tjeerd Veenhoven designed many Best Practice examples in which material innovation, sustainability, culture diversity and social entrepreneurship are always part of the outcome. Design for the many, not for the few.