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Interview Remi - Textile Engineer
Remi Veldhoven grew up in the charming village of Nootdorp and has been living in Delft for twelve years now. In 2019 she talked via LinkedIn to our creative Annabelle Lampe about a unique function: she was given the opportunity to be involved in both the weaving of textiles and innovations within the entire recycling and production process. In Remi's eyes, this combination of her knowledge of raw materials and weaving and coming up with solutions for problems in the waste stream is the perfect combination. The choice to start working for Wolkat was quickly made.
Her interest in these subjects came about when she was studying Textile Design at the Art Academy (Kunstacademie KABK) at Den Haag. "Back then I specialized in weaving, among other things, by doing an internship at a large weaving mill in Germany. After that I gave textile and technique lessons for a few years at the textile workshop of the Art Academy (WdKa) in Rotterdam," says Remi. "I also worked as a freelance textile designer. While designing, I started thinking more and more about what I as a designer could add to the huge amount of (textile) products that already exist. I was also surprised at how little importance people actually attach to textiles. Despite the fact that the production process is so comprehensive and beautiful!
In 2017 Remi went back to study and obtained her master's degree in Textile Technique. "As my graduation research, I went to work at a textile waste/sorting company and saw the gigantic mountains of textile waste with my own eyes. From that moment on I knew that I no longer wanted to work with new materials, but only with recycled and sustainable materials".
As we at Wolkat are constantly working on innovation, Remi faces many challenges and the work is very diverse. "But that's exactly what I like and what makes it interesting," she says. "I'm trying to streamline our processes and see how we can innovate them so that our end products can be improved". The biggest challenge for Remi is to develop textiles that are equally as good in quality as in price as textiles made from new raw materials.
Her Wolkat-business card says "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recreate", something Remi truly believes in. "Buy less, repair more, take good care of your clothes and even swap! And if you want something new, try to find the article second hand. If you eventually have to throw away clothing, always put it in the textile waste bin; now in the Netherlands about 55% of textile waste still ends up in residual waste, so it can't be reused or recycled and disappears in the incinerator. That's such a shame!”
Remi, thank you so much for your story and your tips! We are very happy that you have joined our team and we hope that you will continue to strengthen us for many years to come!
1 Bron: massabalans textiel 2018, FFact publicatie 2020