In recent months, research agency Bezemer & Schubad has been commissioned by the Amsterdam fashion training course Amfi to investigate social safety at the course. The researchers now conclude that there is a culture of fear.
The ‘extremely unsafe’ atmosphere is partly due to the way in which teachers give feedback. Work would not be judged on the basis of measurable criteria, but on the basis of personal ones. Comments like: “This is ugly,” “Are your parents still together,” or “Are you having enough sex?” would be made. They are experienced as humiliating and unnecessarily rude.
Frank Kresin, dean of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, which includes the Amfi, apologizes to the students. According to him, ‘mechanisms for signaling complaints in a timely manner have not worked adequately. This can never happen again’.
Teachers would use old pedagogical methods – such as ruthlessly breaking down someone’s style and then building something better. But according to students who spoke to the researchers, this method produces no growth, only a ‘permanent scar’.
Furthermore, an atmosphere is cultivated in which students participate in a ‘elimination race’. As a result, students feel compelled to compete with each other and are afraid to share personal problems. In some cases, it leads to students stealing each other’s ideas and concepts.
Researchers also note that the workload is experienced as ‘absurdly high’. Teachers would expect students to be busy with the study seven days a week. Stress would prove to be proof of commitment. Moreover, thanks to this stress, they would come up with ‘original ideas’. Some teachers would encourage the use of drugs that give energy. Parents describe how they saw their child suffer under the pressure of work and neglect their own health. Complaints about the workload were brushed aside by the student counselor and mentors: that would simply be part of it.
According to teachers, the fashion industry, for which the students are being groomed, would also be tough. But according to students, that is only used as an excuse. A former student states that the fashion world is indeed hard, ‘but I have never experienced it as hard and unsafe as Amfi in my multi-year and international career.’ The effects of the culture of fear are not small and vary from psychological complaints, a severely damaged self-confidence, to fear of failure and depression. Several students sought psychological help during or after their education.
The reason for the report was a joint publication by Het Parool and NRC last March. In it, a former Amfi student is accused of sexual violence by countless victims. Even after graduating, the student, Martijn N., remained connected to the fashion education.
According to victims, several Amfi teachers were aware of the former student’s reprehensible behavior, but the signals were swept under the carpet. The fact that the Amfi nevertheless continued to use the former student as a figurehead and sent students to him to do an internship is called ‘nauseous’.
In response to the report, the institute has adopted all of the report’s recommendations, including reducing the workload for students. It will also provide better guidance to teachers to work on a healthier pedagogical climate.
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