Inspired by Africa, influenced by Indonesian Batik, designed in the Netherlands, Vlisco’s history and design style is a multicultural mixture of beauty and industrial craftsmanship. Founded in 1846, Vlisco is one of the world’s most dynamic fabric design companies with a reputation for surprising creativity. To work for Vlisco is to work in a company with one of the world’s biggest textile archives and with processes that honour old-fashioned craftsmanship, still in the factories of Helmond.

Its origins are in batik printing for Indonesia but most of its history is in wax printing for West and Central Africa. From its beginning in Africa over 100 years ago Vlisco’s story is the story of African women. A group of exceptional, entrepreneurial women in Togo, called the ‘Nana Benz’ because of their liking for Mercedes cars, traded Vlisco cloth and influenced the choices of design and colour. African women took Vlisco prints into their hearts and into their culture.

Vlisco is about African women and its love for Africa. It is also about its unique and complex wax-printing process and its magical designs, created in the Netherlands for African consumers. To work for Vlisco is to work in a company with the world’s biggest textile archive and with a factory that is steeped in expertise, still in Helmond, the place where it started. It is to work in a design-led company which honours and respects African women and which acknowledges the vibrancy and strength of Africa.