On 9 October 2026, for the Dutch Sustainable Fashion Week (DSFW), Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam Academy organised a workshop called “Workshop Project Poster 2.0”, guided by fashion designer and tutor Leroy Van Halen and Lio De Bruin, designer and instructor at the Fabric station.
The workshop offered a new perspective on waste, meaning that innovation doesn't start with new materials, but with a different way of looking at them. What seems like waste today can become the foundation of an innovative fashion design tomorrow.
The day brought together teachers and young fashion students from different educational Institutes (Albeda to collectively explore the creative potential of waste, in this case old posters, as a design material to create a new wearable design. Without traditional techniques, but with collaboration, improvisation, and plenty of creativity, the workshop started with a quick moment of concept development, where the students experienced how limitations, such as lack of time and brand new materials, can become a source of surprising and original designs.
Before making the final designs, the students engaged with draping on half scale mannequins using pieces of old posters, to then get into the next step of the workshop: making the design on a real scale. Every group of students chose their own model and suddenly they started draping on them, reimagining their designs on a real human size, bringing to life new wearable garments made out of recycled paper.
Finally, the students were led in the backyard of Nieuwe Instituut to take pictures of their looks, shot by instructor of the Image and Sound Station and photographer Menno Boer who created the perfect environment — a sort of open air photo studio— to trap in a shot the marvelous designs the students made during the workshop.
Writer: Eleonora Cecconi, Student 3th year Fashion
Photography by Menno Boer
The workshop “Workshop Project Poster 2.0”, was part of the Dutch Design Fashion Week, Education Symposium with the title: Future of Fashion
The symposium brought together five fashion and design programs, in collaboration with Rotterdam Business School, and took place at Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.
This event was organised and supported by the Municipality of Rotterdam
