- HTNK
Mariette Hoitink—Managing Director HTNK Fashion recruitment & consultancy & founder of Lichting
For me, Lichting is a pure feeling of pride. But also literally Pride—it’s a celebration of talent.
The moment that all the participants appear on the catwalk with models wearing their key outfits always makes my heart skip a beat. We have often known the participants for quite some time at HTNK from lectures or selection committees at the academies. After they are selected for Lichting by their senior lecturers, they are offered workshops at HTNK relating to portfolio and presentation to get them ready for their début in the fashion industry. Once the portfolios and branding texts are perfect and Joost van Bellen and Sander Stenger—Star Studded Studios—have worked with them to create mind-blowing music, Joanne Schouten, Bas Andrea and Nathalie Haelermans have put on a fantastic show production and Team Peter Stigter makes his unprecedented images, I am unDutchly proud. This was also my personal motivation in 2006, together with James Veenhoff, former director of Fashionweek to let the Lichting concept we had conceived become reality: I thought it was important for the HTNK network, the industry, to see the talent present in the Netherlands. It’s our own Dutch debutant ball.
And at the same time to create an awareness that they could also make a contribution by training and hiring juniors internally. It is part of our culture not to shout at the tops of our voices what are we good at, but for the development of our relatively young fashion industry, it is very important that we continue to make visible how fast we are growing. The academies are making great strides. In spite of being a small country with a relatively large number of academies, we are able to operate increasingly well at an international level. Partnership with Fashion Week makes the basis complete for developing Lichting further in the future. I am looking forward to it.
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