About Lucie Huiskens: a pioneer who turned loose threads into a fabric

After 20 years of building cooperation and innovation in the fashion and textile sector, Lucie Huiskens, programme coordinator of NewTexEco, is bidding farewell to her working life at ArtEZ University of the Arts. And she is doing so in style.

During Dutch Design Week, she will launch her e-magazine From loose threads to fabric. A digital magazine that brings together over twenty years of insights, projects and milestones, to keep the story of the sustainable fashion movement alive.

When clearing out her office, Lucie dove into her archives and stumbled upon piles of documents, photos and reports from over 20 years of working on the necessary transition of the fashion and textile system. “When you work from day to day, it sometimes feels like things move slowly,” she says. “But when you look back, you see that an incredible amount has changed and come about.”

That realisation was the start of her e-magazine. “Many of the projects and studies we have done were once on websites that no longer exist. And then that knowledge slowly disappears. I thought that was a shame. So I thought: if I bundle those research reports and steps into an e-magazine, I will unlock those documents again. That way they remain available to students and researchers, who can then get a picture of how the wider research and innovation network for fashion and textiles came about.”

From pioneering to policy
What seems obvious now – working together on a sustainable fashion and textile chain – certainly wasn’t 20 years ago. “In 2008, the first university research on fashion and globalisation was done, funded by NWO. Before that, it was unthinkable to study the fashion industry in this way,” Lucie explains. “Meanwhile, sustainability has become a serious topic and is on the government’s agenda. That’s a huge shift.”

This development did not come naturally. “It has taken a long time to get to where we are now. What has always motivated me is the group of people we entered into this with. During the first working conferences, there were people at the table who are still there today: Han Bekke, Mariette Hoitink, José Teunissen and people from knowledge institutions, business and government. Also Esther Ruiten from the Municipality of Arnhem has always been incredibly important.”

The power of cooperation
Lucie emphasises that cooperation has been the key to success. “We have always collaborated a lot between the professorships of ArtEZ University of the Arts, Saxion, the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Wageningen University and TU Eindhoven. If you find that you have fun together, you automatically keep the energy. You motivate each other, get to know each other’s expertise and grant each other things. That helps enormously to keep pushing and pulling for change.”

An important turning point, she says, was the start of the national innovation network CLICKNL|NextFashion in 2011. ArtEZ was the driving force behind this network, with José Teunissen, then professor of Fashion, and Lucie as program manager, with financial support from the municipality of Arnhem and the province of Gelderland. “We knew what we were getting into, but not where it would end. The research agenda we drew up then, which dealt with sustainability, working conditions and the role of digitalisation, gave direction. Four years later, when we were in a transition phase, we realised: this network has value, we cannot let this go. Together with Modint, we pushed through and continued as NL Next Fashion and Textiles. That was the moment we thought: this works. We will get further with this.”

Future Makers, ArtEZ’s expertise centre, also grew out of that collaboration. “There, the modelectorate and designlectorate worked together more intensively, with support from the municipality of Arnhem and the province of Gelderland. This enabled us to realise projects that had real impact.”

Looking to the future
With her e-magazine, Lucie not only wants to look back, but also forward. “We have learned that interdisciplinary cooperation is the only way to achieve new solutions. Therefore, I hope that with NewTexEco we succeed in creating learning environments where students from, for example, ArtEZ, AMFI and Saxion meet. They all look at their profession in a different way, and that is precisely what makes working together valuable.”

According to Lucie, it is also important to remain curious. “Not only about what happens within your own circle, but also outside it. Visit others, listen, look and ask questions without immediately wanting anything. It is precisely this disinterested curiosity that keeps the network alive and new ideas constantly emerging.”

“The pressure for sustainability is increasing, geopolitically, economically and socially. Fashion is pre-eminently a facet of our consumer society. If that doesn’t change, we will be in big trouble. So it’s very important to keep going.”
– Lucie Huiskens

The timing of the e-magazine’s publication is symbolic: during Dutch Design Week, exactly when Lucie is retiring. “That partly came about by chance,” she says. “But it fits nicely. Dutch Design Week is the moment for NewTexEco to showcase ourselves, the whole network is there. So let’s do it there.”

Hopeful realism
Whether she hopes people will remember her contribution? Lucie: “I don’t think that’s so important. More important is that we succeed in keeping our agenda. The pressure for sustainability is increasing, geopolitically, economically and socially. Fashion is pre-eminently a facet of our consumer society. If that does not change, we will be in big trouble. So it is very important to keep going.”

The e-magazine From loose threads to fabric is a publication of ArtEZ Press and can be read online from 21 October 2025 via this link .