On Thursday March 20, 2025 Daniëlle Bruggeman marked her position as Professor by special appointment Fashion & Sustainability at Radboud University with the inaugural lecture “Stitches of Care: Practising Solidarity through Fashion”. 

She argues for a shift in the fashion industry, from a consumption-driven system to a focus on attention and solidarity. “Fashion does not always have to be about creating new products, but can also, for example, be about repairing existing garments with an eye for the stories they carry,” She stressed the importance of fashion as a means of human connection, where clothing is not just a product as it is often treated in the fast-paced industrial system, but above all a social and cultural carrier of meaning. "We need to look beyond the transactional, industrial approach of the capitalist fashion industry and create space for alternative ways of making and wearing fashion.”

Daniëlle Bruggeman has been a professor in Fasion at ArtEZ since 2017 and also teaches in the master’s programme Critical Fashion Practices. In April 2024, she was appointed extraordinary professor at Radboud University’s Faculty of Arts. Her appointment marks an important step in the cooperation between ArtEZ and Radboud University, which jointly aim to approach sustainability from the perspective of art and science.

Prior to the inaugural lecture Daniëlle hosted a Conversations programme related to the central themes of the inaugural lecture with contributions by Kate Fletcher (Professor of Sustainability, Design and Fashion Systems, Manchester Metropolitan University), Anneke Smelik (Professor Emerita of Visual Culture, Radboud University), Femke de Vries (fashion practitioner, senior lecturer at ArtEZ University of the Arts, and PhD student at RMIT Melbourne), Zinzi de Brouwer (founder Studio Palha and ArtEZ alumna) and Alexis Mersmann (current participant MA Critical Fashion Practices at ArtEZ).

It was an afternoon with inspiring presentations of alternative fashion practices, talks and activations.

During this programme Daniëlle Bruggeman also presented the book Practising Solidarity, a publication she co-authored other fashion makers, artists and scientists. The book explores how fashion can contribute to sustainability and solidarity and offers alternative approaches that go beyond the current industrial mindset of the fashion industry. It aligns with Bruggeman’s vision of redefining fashion as a practice of care and responsibility. The book is now available at ArtEZ Press.

If you haven't been able to attent or are curious about the entire lecture, you can read it here or you can watch the recording below.