23 years of Dutch Fashion Foundation projects has grown an amazing family of fashion designers and a ‘second skin’ of creative and facilitating talents. Together they make up the blueprint for Dutch fashion today. Scroll ahead and get to know them all!

It is a work in progress, so watch this space as it unfolds!

9th Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2019)

Erik Frenken

Erik Frenken has been adamant in realizing his position from the beginning of his career. His professional stamina and recognizable progressive urban vision of affordable luxury fashion have established his name in Dutch fashion history and, indeed, around the globe.

2nd Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2012)

Francisco van Benthum

Menswear designer Francisco van Benthum has built an impressive legacy by consistently pushing the confines of traditional men’s fashion, be it with his eponymous luxury level label or in collaborations such as HACKED by__ and commissioned corporate fashion design.

6th Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2016)

Iris van Herpen

With her extraordinary inspiration and determination, designer Iris van Herpen has single-handedly introduced her signature design vocabulary and futurist techniques to the global visual language of fashion. A national fashion treasure par excellence.

3rd Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2013)

Spijkers en Spijkers

Womenswear designers and sisters Truus and Riet Spijkers stood out from the very start of their Spijkers en Spijkers ready-to-wear label with a quirky, playful and graphic handwriting, a skilled fashion sense and an equally strong entrepreneurial spirit.

7th Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2017)

Ronald van der Kemp

Already a seasoned design professional in the international high end fashion arena, Ronald van der Kemp returned to Amsterdam to unleash his abundant talent in his eponymous ethical luxury label, and in doing so inspiring the entire industry.

1st Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2011)

Ilja Visser

The very first Mode Stipendium was granted to womenswear designer Ilja Visser in support of her couture collection ‘AMBACHT’, an homage to the architecture of the Rijksmuseum, which was undergoing a decade-long renovation at the time.

12th Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2023)

Mohamed Benchellal

The 12th and latest recipient of the Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium, Mohamed Benchellal, seemingly out of nowhere rose to international fame with his sculptural eveningwear couture. Embraced by celebrity and royalty clients and showered with awards by the Arab fashion establishment, from here on this designer joins the ranks of flagbearers of Dutch Fashion excellence.

8th Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2018)

Bas Kosters

The multidisciplinary artist and fashion designer Bas Kosters has enriched Dutch fashion with his signature visual language that combines simplicity and poetry, cultural critique and tenderness, social commitment and vulnerability, fashion anarchism and democracy.

4th Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2014)

Jan Taminiau

Jan Taminiau is one of the best-known fashion names from The Netherlands and one of our last true couture houses with none other than Her Majesty Queen Máxima as his most prominent ambassador. A veritable flag bearer for Dutch fashion design.

When Jan Taminiau received the Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium in 2014 his star had risen to a summit in the wake of King Willem-Alexander’s coronation the year before, for which occasion Jan and his team had delivered the unforgettable royal blue gown and cape for our new queen. Máxima had already been a loyal client and patron since she wore Jan Taminiau’s iconic recycled mailbag jacket to the opening of the Arnhem Mode Biennale in 2009, and she remains so until today. For Jan Taminiau, reaching this level of fame and accolades marked a turning point as new clients from all over the world flocked to his studio and priorities needed to be set. Obeying show calendars was not one of them, delivering true artisanal beauty one exclusive gown at the time was. Jan denounces the essence of fashion, which is harmful in every way, and fervently hopes that the new appreciation for masterful craftsmanship is more than a fashion trend.

Love brought Jan Taminiau to Madrid, where, soon enough, he also found a new clientele, and the necessary highly skilled hands to work with. In 2019 he opened a second couture studio there, and for a while Jan and some of the team travelled back and forth to meet the demands of both ateliers. Ongoing corona measures in The Netherlands ultimately drove him to close his studio in Baambrugge in the summer of 2023.

5th Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2015)

Youasme Measyou

With their knitwear label YOUASME MEASYOU, designer Mark van Vorstenbos and artist Twan Jansen pioneered with crowd funding, community feedback and virtual reality retail, introducing contemporary values such as transparency and inclusivity to fashion.

10th Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2021)

Claes Iversen

Danish born designer Claes Iversen has impressed the Dutch fashion arena with his professional agility and deeply developed oeuvre, which unites many apparent contradictions: timeless elegance vs nowness, glamour vs realism, concept vs craftsmanship.

11th Recipient Cultuurfonds Mode Stipendium (2022)

MAISON the FAUX

Joris Suk and Tessa de Boer of MAISON the FAUX are brave scouts in a new era in fashion, forward in their questioning of values and practices embedded in the industry, and fearless in exploring and establishing new roles for designers and affiliated artists.