Where Fashion Becomes a Language
Inside the 17th edition of FASHIONCLASH Festival
Turning Maastricht into a living dialogue between body, story, and design.
Words by Katie Huelin
From the 14th - 16th of November, Maastricht transforms into a stage for fashion beyond form, where fashion, movement, and meaning collide. Now in its 17th edition, FASHIONCLASH Festival returns, bringing together designers, artists, and performers from the Netherlands and over 25 countries worldwide: presenting a multifaceted and inclusive perspective on contemporary fashion culture.
Over three days, across multiple venues, from ENCI Maastricht to Bureau Europa and Lumière Cinema, the festival invites audiences to step inside fashion’s most experimental spaces as the city unfolds as a network of performances, exhibitions, films, workshops, and talks.
New Fashion Narratives: Collective Movements
Bureau Europa | 14–16 November
At Bureau Europa, the exhibition New Fashion Narratives: Collective Movements, running from the 14th to 16th of November, anchors this year’s edition. Curated by Jonas Zitter, Paula Dischinger, Rafael Kouto, and Tjerre Lucas Bijker, the show explores fashion as a form of connection and resistance where making becomes a communal act.
Highlights include Júlia Galarza Arévalo’s “Ear to Ear”, a co-creative choral performance of deep listening; CIMO’s embroidered archive, crafted with refugees and locals; and Karl Joonas Alamaa & Lisette Sivard’s MANIA GRANDIOSA, a 125-kilometre walking fashion show through Estonia.
Participating designers:
Alia Mascia, Alessandro Santi & Brankica Sanadrovic, Anita Ferrara, ii by Mariia Pavlyk, Kantamanto
Social Club, CIMO – Center for Research of Fashion and Clothing, Elfje, Maizie, Karl Joonas Alamaa &
Lisette Sivard, Fiona Elisa Carnuccio, mare mito, Margarida Coelho, Júlia Galarza Arévalo, Manon
Dufau, Hannah Smith, Giada Lou Hammel, G(end)er Swap, Kim Gemmink, SWARM MAG, The Platform,
ZELIGHD.
The CLASH House
ENCI Maastricht | Saturday 15 November
At the CLASH House, inside ENCI’s raw industrial hall, fashion becomes performance. Guided by theatre-maker Nadîja Roza Broekhart and choreographer Laisvie Andrea Ochoa, emerging designers present pieces that live and breathe on stage.
From ULTRA-ORA’s post-flood dystopia to EMIRHAKIN × David Siepman’s sensory performance on memory and desire, the showcase blurs costume and choreography. Here, garments are not worn but inhabited, stitched from story and movement.
Fashion Film Program
Lumière Cinema | 14–16 November
Film remains a core thread. The Fashion Film Program at Lumière Cinema celebrates designers and directors experimenting with the short fashion-film format. Featuring a selection of 35 short films from around the world, it offers a rich and diverse panorama of perspectives, disciplines and narratives.
Screenings culminate in the FASHIONCLASH Fashion Film Awards, with new premieres like The Sneeze and HANGMAN & CO., both produced through FASHIONCLASH’s development initiative for emerging filmmakers.
Participants Fashion Film Program:
Alice Gatti & Diego Indraccolo, Andrew Krechetov, Sergio Palacio Monreal, Aidan AMORE & Joseph
Nicholas & EVERETT REDGUN, Gwladys Gambie, Tyra Galieva, Lisaly Belcastro, Céline Ruault, Femke
Hemelaar, Gönül Yigit, Rhandy van Duin, Claire Tsumura, Sem Oueslati, Sem Oueslati, Gina Siliquini,
Ferhat Ertan, Lilian Brade & Phuong An Phi & Niclas Hasemann, Lei Jiang, Hadi Moussally, Elizabeth
Haust, June Seo, Julez Brandes & Matthew S. Krivolapov, Julia de Beer, Caspar Heijnneman & Daan
Sanders, Marloes IJpelaar / Club Lam, Debora Brune & Jánik von Wilmsdorff, Zhaodong Zeng, James
Nolan, Kasumi Hiraoka, Megan van Engelen, Paola Nerilli, Olga Lunina & Anna Rakhvalova,
Pandemonia, Wwenen Lusa, Yijia mao
Amarte X FASHIONCLASH
Jan van Eyck Academie | 14–16 November
In collaboration with the Amarte Fund, three interdisciplinary duos present new works where fashion meets poetry, classical music, and performance. Participants include EMIRHAKIN × David Siepman, Natálie Kulina × Alyne Li, and Merel van Slobbe × David Paulus.
Fashion Makes Sense
Centre Céramique | 14–16 November
More than a festival, FASHIONCLASH is an ecosystem built on participation.
At Centre Céramique, Fashion Makes Sense brings together over 100 community members aged 3 to 70+ in an exhibition of co-created works made from recycled textiles. Each piece embodies fashion’s social dimension: how creativity can foster care, inclusion, and dialogue. The exhibition features projects such as Mensen Dragen Mensen (People Carrying People) by Noah Jansen, co-created with over 100 participants, alongside presentations by Ecopolitan Magazine, Tara Smit, and students from AMFI’s Hypercraft minor. Workshops and a Fashion Makes Sense Talk, moderated by Carmen Hogg, complete the weekend’s participatory thread.
Meanwhile, The Social Hub Maastricht, 14–16 November, hosts Class of 2025 and ESSENCE, showcasing the next generation of designers and voices, including Andra Blažģe, Claire Sillekens, Paco Teepe, and Karolina Wójtowicz.
Alongside, curator Marlon Claessen presents ESSENCE, featuring designers such as Jenny Monteiro and Kistaku Handmade Upcycling Fashion, embodying the festival’s ethos of cultural dialogue and experimentation.
This year’s visual campaign, created by Ülkühan Akgül (ULKUHAN), captures the spirit of transformation. Blending AI-generated imagery with poetry, Akgül’s portraits, The Poet, The Performer, The Designer, reflect the festival’s ongoing conversation on authorship in the digital age.
The work asks quietly but urgently: Who creates? Who is seen? How is identity imagined?
“These archetypes mirror the festival’s participating artists and are accompanied by poems, together forming a multisensory narrative in which text, image, and digital process merge.”
Throughout the city, fashion merges with performance and ritual, from the Amarte × FASHIONCLASH collaborations at Jan van Eyck Academie to Mounira Al Solh’s live performance at the Bonnefanten Museum. Even the Afterparty becomes an act of collective creation, where movement and design converge in a blue-lit celebration.
FASHIONCLASH continues to shape a fashion culture that is less about consumption, more about connection.
For more information on the full programme, participants, and tickets, visit www.fashionclash.nl