Dutch Fashion Talents to Watch

Amsterdam was all about fashion last week. From 1 to 5 September, established names and a new generation of designers took to the catwalk during Amsterdam Fashion Week. The latter group in particular captured attention. MASTERS highlights five Dutch fashion talents worth following.

1. Arthur Wagenaar

Arthur Wagenaar is now the winner of Lichting 2026, the platform where ten of the most promising graduates from Dutch fashion academies present their work to an international jury. Wagenaar, who graduated from Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten in Den Haag, won unanimously with his collection MONK'S PRACTICE. The creative process takes centre stage: repetition, starting over and accepting imperfection. One of the most striking designs consisted of hundreds of torn pages treated with ink, made from pages of a philosophical work by Friedrich Nietzsche. With sculptural forms, natural dyes and a pronounced craft-based approach, Wagenaar immediately made his mark.

2. ULKUHANBATUHAN

Ülkühan Akgül and Batuhan Demir met during Lichting 2023, the annual platform for promising graduates from Dutch fashion academies. Together they founded ULKUHANBATUHAN as Amsterdam-based designers. After winning the Frans Molenaar Prize in late 2025, the duo presented their first joint collection during AFW 2026, Mens, erger je niet. The well-known board game is not a playful detail here, but a metaphor for social rules: who gets to participate, who must wait and what happens when someone deviates from the norm? In this way, the label shows that fashion can also be a tool for making social structures visible.

3. DeFijter & VanBruggen

Rossell de Fijter and Daan van Bruggen founded their couture label DeFijter & VanBruggen only in 2025, but made their major debut during Amsterdam Fashion Week. Their first collection, De Belofte van Buiten, is a deliberate response to a world dominated by speed and algorithms. Instead, the designers seek calm, physical presence and space for the unexpected. The duo wants to bring something of theatre back into everyday life, a distinctive approach that sets the young label apart within Dutch fashion.

4. Pablo Salvador Willemars

Pablo Salvador Willemars graduated from ArtEZ in Arnhem in 2022 and subsequently worked with internationally renowned Dutch designer Duran Lantink before establishing his own label. During AFW 2026, Willemars presented the collection Nat bij regen. The designs are autobiographical and explore personal identity in relation to social and political developments. Sculptural silhouettes, headpieces and unexpected materials form a recurring element of his work. The result is fashion that reads less like a traditional collection and more like a visual translation of a personal world.

5. Tjeerd Marie

Under the name Tjeerd Marie, Isa van Moorselaar and David Grimmius have been collaborating since 2023 on their own vision of high fashion within the Dutch fashion scene. During AFW, the duo presented their debut collection Employee of the Month!, which centres on work pressure, stress and performance anxiety. The designers explore how this pressure affects the body, behaviour and appearance. At the same time, the collections deliberately move between traditional menswear and womenswear. In this way, Tjeerd Marie connects a recognisable social issue to a distinctly experimental design language.