Blue Cast: Joanne Schouten on Denim Days’ ‘Big, Blue, Bubbly’ Return
The denim industry has a strong sense of community. And one of the major forces facilitating and strengthening these relationships is the calendar of global denim events.
On the most recent episode of our Blue Cast podcast, Tricia Carey was joined by Joanne Schouten, an independent creative project manager who has worked on some of the denim industry’s must-attend events such as Kingpins Show and the Denim Days Festival. After attending fashion school, her earlier work included producing fashion shows. However, her career turned to denim around 2014 with events such as the Global Denim Awards.
“It felt like coming home to be part of the denim industry, and I hope to stay here for a long time because there’s so much I still need to learn and I still can find out and develop in this work,” said Joanne.
Joanne’s hometown of Amsterdam is a denim hub, as the home to brands like G-Star Raw, Kings of Indigo and Scotch & Soda. The city took notice of the growing jean scene and established Denim City, a central spot for denim education and meetings. Amsterdam launched Denim Days in 2014, providing a platform for shopping, discovery and learning. Joanne has been involved in Denim Days since 2016.
The shared mission of Denim City, House of Denim, the Jean School and Denim Days is building a more conscious denim industry. These efforts all unite under the motto “Towards a Brighter Blue.”
“Very important to me personally is our Denim Talks program, which we partnered up for a couple of years already with TENCEL™,” said Joanne. “That’s one of the places that we get to work together to think of ideas, of topics to talk about to educate and to inspire and to inform consumers about more responsible denim.”
Like many other events, Denim Days has had to adapt over the past two years. Without the ability to host live gatherings in the height of the pandemic, the festival instead went online in 2020. The following year, amid virtual event fatigue, Denim Days opted out of hosting a festival and instead turned to online engagement, including a new website and social media. The organizers also put on a small-scale local event for about 40 people, taking Covid health precautions.
After skipping an event in 2021, Denim Days is coming back April 22 to 23 in Amsterdam. This is earlier than the festival’s normal October timeframe, cutting down the wait time for attendees. The April event is dubbed a “market edition,” with a focus on the marketplace. In addition to shopping, there will also be Denim Talks discussing sustainability. Conveniently for the international denim world who will be in town for Kingpins Show, this Denim Days experience is the following weekend.
“It will be one big, blue, bubbly two days of celebration,” said Joanne.
Listen to the full episode here.