International Visitors Programme
Lichting 2014 took place on 11 July during FashionWeek Amsterdam. The 14 top graduates from the Netherlands' seven fashion academies showed their degree collections on the catwalk. Bastian Visch won the V&D Talent Award.
The Lichting show and award serve to connect young talent with the fashion industry. Over the years, the award has become the country's premier prize for young clothing designers. The winner receives an opportunity to design a so-called capsule collection of easily combinable, timeless pieces and to develop and produce it with professional assistance. Visch's collection will go on sale in selected V&D stores in spring 2015.
The following people were invited to serve on the Lichting 2014 expert panel as part of Het Nieuwe Instituut's International Visitors Programme: Jo Simpson, a fashion stylist, model casting director, production director for various designers at London Fashion Week, and fashion curriculum leader at Central Saint Martins; Mathew Stevenson-Wright, men's fashion editor for Wallpaper magazine; Marlo Saalmink, a creative consultant, speaker and brand consultant in Copenhagen; and Lotte Mostert, a former Lichting participant, collection manager at Haider Ackermann, and an independent fashion designer and product developer. The panellists advised the graduates and finally voted with other professionals to choose Visch as the winner. In addition to Lichting, the panellists attended a number of other shows during FashionWeek Amsterdam and dined with the head lecturers of the fashion academies and representatives of partner organisations, including Het Nieuwe Instituut. The programme is organised in close collaboration with FashionWeek Nederland and HTNK Fashion Recruitment & Consultancy.