State of Fashion 2026 | Available to Promise
Under the title Available to Promise, State of Fashion Biennale 2026 examined the systems that shape fashion today. Rather than focusing solely on clothing, it looked specifically at the facilitating structures of the fashion industry: from production chains and platforms to labour networks, trade routes and ecosystems. The title is drawn from logistics terminology and refers to what, when and to whom something can be delivered. This raises questions about what fashion promises, who benefits from it, and the labour, territory and lives that are put to work in service of it.
From this perspective, fashion appears as a compact material and social ecology, functioning both as a technological system and as part of broader cosmologies, shaped by human and non-human elements, ancestral practices and algorithmic processes.
The Biennale rested on five interconnected pillars: Develop, Distribute,
Hype, Experience and Transform. In addition, ONsites — developed in collaboration with international co-curators — explored the system from within, mapping the infrastructures of fashion. The public was invited to imagine not only what exists, but also what could be.
The exhibition Available to Promise was open to visitors from 14 May to 28 June 2026 at our main venue, the Eusebiuskerk. In addition, programme elements could also be visited at Rozet, Museum Arnhem, Focus Filmtheater and the OndernemersLab.
Photo: campaign image by International Magic.
Would you like to read back over everything about the Available to Promise exhibition and the State of Fashion Biennale? Read our Visitor’s Guide online.
ONsites
State of Fashion 2026 unfolded across four locations: the home base of Arnhem and three international ONsites: China, Sri Lanka and Ghana. At each ONsite, a conversation partner — a co-curator — was invited to develop a State of Fashion project within their local context, in response to the Biennale’s themes as they relate to the urgencies and experiences of their cities and communities.
ONsite: China
For the ONsite China project, chuān focuses on Heilongjiang province in the far north, far from the south-eastern coastal regions where the garment industry is concentrated.
ONsite: Ghana
For the ONsite Ghana project, the focus is on Kantamanto Market in Accra, one of the largest second-hand clothing markets in the world and a pivotal hub within the global fashion system.
ONsite: Sri Lanka
Voor ONsite Sri Lanka, ontwikkeld in reactie op de Develop-pijler, reisde modeontwerper Shasha Mahanama naar de oude stad Polonnaruwa in de Noord-Centrale Provincie van Sri Lanka.
State of Fashion Biennale 2026 | Available to Promise
The Biennale rested on five interconnected pillars: Develop, Distribute, Hype, Experience en Transform.
Pillar: Develop
Fashion comes into being through imagining and making: spinning, weaving, dyeing, shaping. Every fibre carries traces of place, knowledge and dedication.
Pillar: Distribute
Fashion is distributed through hidden constructions: ports, warehouses, data servers and hands. These systems determine value, distance and time.
Pillar: Hype
Desire is one of the great driving forces of fashion. Through media, marketing and algorithms, attention becomes a currency.
Pillar: Experience
Experience unfolds between seeing and wearing, between memory and display. A catwalk, a shop, a wardrobe – each one a confrontation between body and image, emotion and appearance.
Pillar: Transform
Transform reflects the desire to reshape the fashion system from the outside in. It traces emerging processes in which new materials, resources and ways of thinking shift from the periphery to the core.
something CINEMA
In a designated physical film space within the Biennale exhibition, something CINEMA explored fashion’s self-image through a continuous video stream of makers and commentators. This element was the product of an open call and brings together short films from around the world that approach fashion obliquely, playfully or unexpectedly. This created space for experimentation, unbiased perspectives and voices that look beyond the traditional context of fashion.
Libary of Promise
International Library of Fashion Research (Oslo, Norway) opened a satellite library during the State of Fashion Biennale. For Available to Promise, a selection had been made from the extensive collection, ranging from magazines and books to brand publications. It offered insight into how fashion circulates and presents itself, as well as insight into alternatives. Visitors were invited to browse the shelves and look through the printed material.
State of Fashion in collaboration with FDFA
State of Fashion and Fashion + Design Festival Arnhem (FDFA) invited designers and makers with a connection to Arnhem to respond to the Biennale’s central question: what promises can we still make today within the systems of fashion? Submissions explored themes such as Develop, Distribute, Hype, Experience and Transform, and focused on both the visible and invisible structures that shape fashion and society.
Youngjin Choe, Harm Coordes, Mirte Engelhard, Karin Mientjes (Collective Works) and Lisette Ros presented new work during the State of Fashion Biennale 2026 | Available to Promise; Hidden Systems, Shared Futures. The exhibition was free to visit throughout the Biennale, from 14 May to 28 June 2026, at Rozet.
In addition, the designers brought their work to life through a one-off performance, activation or presentation in Rozet or Arnhem’s historic underground cellars. This took place on 21 May and 18 June, transforming these special spaces into sites for encounter, dialogue and experimentation.
Youngjin Choe
Youngjin Choe explores fashion as a form of meaningful storytelling and emotional communication, rather than simply garment-making. Rooted in deeply personal narratives of childhood, pain and healing, his work translates inner experience into powerful silhouettes, thoughtful material choices and expressive use of light. By combining traditional Korean design with Western clothing languages, he creates layered reflections on identity and transformation that resonate in one-on-one encounters with the audience.
Harm Coordes
Harm Coordes works at the intersection of fashion, performance and participation. His practice explores clothing as something to be experienced collectively rather than viewed as a finished object. Using reused materials and playful, wearable forms, his work invites audiences to engage physically and socially, creating shared moments that are humorous and approachable.
Mirte Engelhard
Mirte Engelhard works with textile, memory and participation to create intimate, experiential installations. Her practice explores moments of transition and uncertainty, using layered fabrics that carry personal and collective histories. By inviting others to share stories of change, loss and transformation, her work becomes a shared space for reflection, where the in-between is not something to overcome, but something to inhabit together. During the Biënnale, this approach unfolds into a quiet yet powerful installation that grows from individual memories into a collective expression.
Karin Mientjes (Collective Works)
Karin Mientjes werkt op het snijvlak van grafisch ontwerp, textiel en ruimtelijk werk. In haar praktijk ziet zij beweging niet als een visueel effect, maar als een wezenlijk onderdeel van het materiaal zelf. In haar nieuwe werk onderzoekt zij hoe textiel sporen draagt van arbeid, circulatie en herhaling, en hoe deze processen het modesysteem door de tijd heen vormgeven. Met een kinetische en interactieve installatie nodigt zij bezoekers uit om zelf in beweging te komen en hun eigen gedachten en reacties toe te voegen. Zo groeit het werk stap voor stap uit tot een collectief geheel en wordt mode zichtbaar als een gedeeld en voortdurend proces.
Lisette Ros
Lisette Ros is a conceptual and performance artist who uses the body as a tool, source and medium to research behavior, identity, ancestry and (invisible) narratives. Her work weaves personal, cultural and embodied histories into collective experience.
ArtEZ Toile-de-Luxe
The world-renowned Arnhem fashion course at ArtEZ, celebrated for its focus on creativity and craftsmanship, is celebrating the 25th anniversary of ‘Toile-de-Luxe’ this year.
The design assignment, which has been a common thread throughout the program’s sustainable curriculum since the academic year of 2000-2001, serves as a prestudy for the graduation collections. The emphasis is on the creative process and artisanal research, revealing manual workmanship that often remains invisible in the final result. Over the years, the “Toile-de-Luxe” has grown into an iconic concept both in the Netherlands and abroad, repeatedly serving as inspiration for many and a unifying force among all “Arnhemmers” (alumni of the department) worldwide.
The ‘Toile-de-Luxe’ exhibition was on display in the Pavilion on Stadhuisplein for the duration of the Biennale.
Bureau Ruimtekoers x State of Fashion: Ateliers
Bureau Ruimtekoers is een Arnhems platform voor makers, kunstenaars en ontwerpers die zich bezighouden met maatschappelijke vraagstukken. Through a participatory approach, they bring together residents and policymakers around shared goals and on equal footing, addressing questions about the living environment. State of Fashion has been working structurally with Bureau Ruimtekoers since 2022 in the area of our audience and maker participations.
The future is a co-creation
Ruimtekoers developed various making workshops, in which young people from Arnhem and Arnhem residents from near and far, together with artists and designers, conceived, created and presented both small and large visions of the future. At school, in the city or in the studio.
We’re in!
The making workshops thus became a temporary vision of the future in their own right: a space for an equal dialogue around new ideas, where you can be and remain yourself. That is precisely what co-creation is about. So bring on that future, we’re in, and we’ll shape it together with you.
Programme
During the State of Fashion Biennale, the maker studios were showcased through video recordings. Throughout the Biennale, these recordings could be seen in the shop windows on Bovenbeekstraat. On 23 May and 5 & 27 June, we celebrated the maker studios with a special activation! A moment when the studio on Bovenbeekstraat came to life, inviting the public into the maker studios and celebrating and presenting the visions for the future.
Spijkers en Spijkers – 25 Years of Constructed Identity
Since 2001, Truus and Riet Spijkers have explored the relationship between body and line, colour and construction. Their work moves between fashion and visual art, rooted in the visual language of the 1920s and the modernist principles of De Stijl, in which reduction creates power and geometry becomes expression. In their designs, the female silhouette is not decorated but articulated: clean lines structure the body while blocks of colour create rhythm and tension. Influences of Mondrian and Rietveld appear as an underlying grammar, not as literal references.
A quiet mathematical harmony often underlies their work, with proportions resonating with the golden ratio, and panels, seams and colour blocks growing in deliberate balance. The collaboration between the sisters forms the foundation of the label: Truus thinks in colour like a painter, Riet in volume like a sculptor. Together, they create garments that take a stance, both mentally and physically. On its 25th anniversary, Spijkers en Spijkers aligns with State of Fashion, showing how fashion can move beyond the fleeting and become a construction of identity.
Introdans x State of Fashion: TWINSET – The Encounter
Dans meets mode. The iconic Dutch design duo Spijkers en Spijkers took to the dance floor with professional dancers. In this new choreography by choreographer Adriaan Luteijn, entitled TWINSET, the worlds of haute couture and contemporary dance merged into an intriguing experience. A unique collaboration between Introdans and State of Fashion, two Arnhem-based organisations united by their shared vision on art, craftsmanship, innovation and connection.
TWINSET – The Encounter 2026 premiered during the State of Fashion Biennale on 12 June 2026 at Theater aan de Rijn in Arnhem, and was subsequently also shown as part of Introdans’ End of Season 2026 programme in Doetinchem and Apeldoorn.
The audience enters an atelier-like setting: a workspace where sisters Truus and Riet design, discuss and sketch. What began as a realistic glimpse into their design process slowly unfolded into a choreography. Elizaveta Zhukova and Maria Zhukova – as their alter egos – appear, forming a dynamic quartet together with the sisters.
The performance was captured in illustrations by fashion illustrator and artist Petra Lunenburg. The illustrations were on display during the Biennale at Focus Filmtheater.
WereldLab x State of Fashion: Artist in Residence Caroline Monnet
Each year, WereldLab, part of the National Museum of World Cultures, hosts an international artist in Nijmegen, in collaboration with Besiendershuis. The focus is on the encounter and cross-pollination between the artists’ international perspective and the local Nijmegen (and surrounding area) cultural communities.
This year, the collaboration is expanding with State of Fashion, to raise the profile of fashion in the Arnhem-Nijmegen region. We are proud that Caroline Monnet, a multidisciplinary artist of Anishinaabe-French descent, is coming to the region as Artist in Residence.
The role of fashion is constantly evolving, partly following and partly shaping society. Themes such as sustainability and inclusion are increasingly important. Caroline Monnet’s work focuses on personal cultural history and the blending of cultural narratives. She has a deep-rooted interest in conveying Indigenous lived realities, and her work addresses the impact of colonialism. This will be translated into an artwork that will be designed during, and through, the residency. Caroline Monnet will be in residence at the Besiendershuis in Nijmegen from the end of March, the outcomes of her new work will be on show at Museum Arnhem during the Biennale.