From Off-Grid to Electric

The first time in off-grid and quiet Portugal, where the days feel slow and a bit disconnected from everything else, a group of fashion students gathers after months of pandemic isolation. Relearning how to be around each other while taking part in the Student Label Re-style project.

There is no pressure, no aesthetic to live up to, just hands working, conversations unfolding naturally. There is a shared feeling that re-styling isn’t only about garments, but about rebuilding identity.

What Chop Suey observes is an attitude that isn’t left behind in Portugal but follows them into Strijp-S, adapting to a completely different rhythm without losing its core.

Even in this super curated, hyper-designed space, the workshop still carries that same energy. Only now it’s surrounded by vegan cafés, oat milk lattes, and that yoghurt ice cream everyone ends up getting “just to try” and then posting five minutes later.

Image;Braaksma-Roos-Architectenbureau-Engine-Space-StrijpS-Ehv

The Lab that Offers Creative Collabs

Now they meet in Strijp-S, where the Philips factories used to produce their electronics. inside the MicroLab, a world of steel structures, clean lines, the fast-moving city energy feels slightly performative.

The workshop lasts three days. The concept stays simple: finish what already exists and present it in a new setting. Portugal feels soft and open; here, everything is sharp and industrial.

Before, they work in near silence. Now, there’s the constant hum of machines, voices in a space that once produced something entirely different.

Students step into their own creations, turning scraps into expressive looks, ready for socials but still experimental. Between cutting and stitching, they document everything, phones and cameras capturing styles against raw concrete, steel beams, and sunlit windows.

Creative Hubs and Concept Stores

Between sessions, the students wander through creative spots in Strijp-S, where vintage racks blend into concept stores and nothing feels mass-produced.

Back in the workshop, that same energy turns hands-on. Fabrics dip into dye baths, colours shifting unpredictably. Others layer prints, experiment with textures, or hand-stitch pieces back together or adding small embroidered details as personal signatures.

Students grow more confident, bolder in how they style and present, moving naturally between creating, hanging out, and capturing moments for socials.

Outside, they gather with coffee, swapping pieces and ideas, scouting corners for quick shoots—textured walls, metal staircases, café interiors. Even unfinished pieces become part of the look.

It never feels forced. The mix of creatives, food spots, and slow-fashion culture creates a shared vibe where everything just clicks.

Blurring Boundaries

Strijp-S makes sense if you stop trying to label it.

What used to be a place built for mass production, efficient, structured, focused on output at scale, now hosts people who are doing almost the opposite. Questioning systems, reshaping ideas, and using the past not as something to leave behind, but as material to work with.

Industrial buildings still standing strong, combining expensive lofts with social housing. Like the vertical forest, wiith trees and plants climbing up 19 floors. This proofs that even in the middle of concrete and steel, nature can be integrated into everyday life, without losing the urban edge.

This mindset has always been part of Philips, founded in 1891 by Frederik Philips and Gerard Philips, who believed a company should be more than production, it should be part of people’s lives.

In 1913 PSV Eindhoven, originally a sports association for Philips employees, is built to support well-being, connection and a sense of community beyond the factory floor. That spirit carries through in Frits Philips, who even at the age of 100, chooses to watch matches not from a VIP box, but among the supporters.

Looking at the students in Strijp-S now, cutting, restyling, documenting, moving between workshops and cafés, feels like a new generation of makers, not producing at scale, not erasing but re-shaping into something that feels contemporary.