Multiple Identities reopens its no shop shop in Amsterdam’s Red Light District creative hub during ISPO week, questioning fashion's obsession with ‘the new’
What if the real magic is in reconfiguring what we already have?
From Thursday 5th November to Saturday 7th November, Amsterdam-based design studio multiple identities (mi) reopens its no shop shop in the city’s Red Light District: a hybrid between a shop, showroom and working design lab, presenting modular clothing and a new layering system.
The concept is to make more out of less - by finding clever ways to use what we already have - at the same time as combating what there is too much of: overproduction and waste. A win-win.
Some modular pieces are available to take home, some simply there to be experienced - and visitors are invited to touch, combine and transform them themselves.
In short: PLAY.
At the centre is the mi_kit system: components instead of complete garments. Sleeves, bodies, scarf sleeves, half garments and storage units designed to work together, worn over, under and with each other – or used to hack what already sits in the closet.
A jacket becomes a transformer, a sleeve a scarf, and two pieces make a third: 1+1=3.
Made from pre-consumer discards and end-of-roll fabrics, almost entirely without virgin materials. Consumers become players. Nothing new becomes everything new.
As founder Jacqueline Haeberle puts it:
“The mi_kit isn’t a product. It’s an invitation to play. You learn how clothing works, how systems work, how waste works. Nobody lectures you. The most interesting conversation in fashion right now isn’t about what to make next. It’s about what’s already made, sitting somewhere, waiting.”
A SHOP WITHOUT THE USUAL SCRIPT
While the sports industry gathers at RAI Amsterdam for ISPO, multiple identities is forging an alternative meeting point in the city centre, right in the creative hub within Amsterdam’s Red Light District.
Behind its 16 windows: no booths, badges or aisles, just products in use, their construction, and room to play a part.
The same thinking runs through mi’s collaborations with ISAORA and Oscalito, alongside partners Fidlock, YKK and Fabpatch, and footwear by Zellerfeld. With Oscalito, the Turin-based knitwear maker founded in 1936, mi will also show a first glimpse of a product planned for release in 2027.
Together, these projects build towards a scalable system that closes the loop and brings the recipe back to the factory floor.
THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES
Once upon a time, everyone agreed that the emperor was wearing something beautiful. Nobody wanted to be the one to say otherwise. Until someone dared to look again.
Fashion has its own version of the story. Every season brings something new, and the next collection is already on its way before the last one has found its place.
What if the problem is not a lack of new ideas, but our reluctance to question the rules we have grown used to?
In the end, it took a child to say what everyone could see.
The invitation goes to humans of all ages.
