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"Let&amp;#x27;s be honest: Amsterdam&amp;#x27;s red light district is probably a lot more well known for its lack of clothes than its presence of them. But a group of Dutch design enthusiasts have recently embarked on a very cool plan to turn a neighborhood of the world&amp;#x27;s oldest profession into a fashion-forward hot spot. Sailors, fraternity boys, and strung-out students have long escaped to the red light district to enjoy some of its more scandalous pleasures, but now an impressive initiative that began in January 2008 is helping transform Amsterdam&amp;#x27;s oldest neighborhood into &amp;quot;The Red Light Fashion District.&amp;quot; Thanks to Mariette Hoitink, who runs a creative/style agency called HTNK along with a team of devoted fashion fanatics,18 Dutch designers and two fashion photographers have been given retail spaces in the red light district and are privy to a host of invaluable resources, including production facilities, sales teams, and a group of like-minded people to share their struggles and joys with. It&amp;#x27;s a way to gentrify a neighborhood that hasn&amp;#x27;t always had the best reputation, and give an opportunity to some up-and-coming talent. It&amp;#x27;s not about sending the prostitutes and the pot smoking out, but about integrating with them to become one very unique area. &amp;quot;You don&amp;#x27;t name a project &amp;#x27;Red Light Fashion District&amp;#x27; if you want to get rid of the red light,&amp;quot; Hoitink says. &amp;quot;We&amp;#x27;re trying to do everything with respect to the neighborhood.&amp;quot; She and her team have pulled together a very talented group of local designers (the only stipulations: they have to be Dutch, have talent, and already have an established business) to live and work side by side with the many, many diverse types who occupy the block. Designers like Bas Kosters, Conny Groenewegen (below--isn&amp;#x27;t she adorable?) and the label And Beyond are all benefiting from the program. They&amp;#x27;ll be a part of it until July 2009, when their leases are up and redevelopment with a whole new group of designers is once again in the works. I have to say, between this project and the Dutch Fashion Foundation, which I visited the other day, it&amp;#x27;s amazing how much the Dutch do to nurture their young design talent. They&amp;#x27;re lucky enough to have some government funding over here to pay for the arts, and even luckier that fashion is considered one of those arts. If you&amp;#x27;re a tax-paying Dutch citizen with some serious design talent, the possibilities are pretty much limitless. What do you guys think of the Red Light Fashion District project? Do you think a formerly seedy neighborhood can share space with the Viktor &amp;amp; Rolfs of tomorrow? Discuss!"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/fashion/blogs/dressed/2009/03/the-red-light-fashion-district>