Today I shot my first footage for the upcoming videoblogs.

Oh, by the way, welcome back to all the English readers!

So the footage for the videoblogs. The initial idea was to do them solely and exclusively in Dutch. And to be quite honest, I didn’t like it at all. There is a reason as to why I started writing my blog, being Dutch, in English back in 2009, just as there is a reason to why I insisted on doing my studies in English. I’ve never really had a problem talking or writing the language. As a little boy, the only channels I really watched were Discovery and National Geographic, and the fact that I started programming websites at the age of 8 on an English computer probably helped a lot as well in that respect. It has come to a point where I don’t actually consider English as a second language anymore, but rather a second native language.

The Dutch language, no matter how you put it, just doesn’t speak, write nor sounds as good, as flowing, as English does, especially when talking about a subject like tailoring. At least for me that is. So, by writing the blog and recording the videoblogs in Dutch, I´m not only limiting myself, but I´m also limiting the audience I´m able to reach, and used to reach actually. Back in 2009/2010, I had a peak of 900-1100 unique visitors on the website a month, from many parts of the world. I thoroughly enjoy talking to, sharing my experiences, opinions, and insights with international colleague’s, but future customers as well. At the end of the day, my future is not here in Holland. At least not physically. I am still adamant on moving to London, seeing as from there, I can reach out to a much larger audience to whom I can show my vision of clothing and style to.

So why did you switch to Dutch in the first place? Well, having a company here in the Netherlands, with Dutch customers, it’s obviously more logical to have a Dutch website. Why I did not switch back to nor kept writing my technical articles in English, I don’t know. But it’s time to change.

So, the next couple of days, during the time I’m not cutting/making any shirts, I’ll be working on a fully fledged English version of the website. In any case, from now on, every post will also be made in English and viewable here on the Dutch blog. After that, you’ll be able to choose a language and keep reading the site in that particular language.

For the coming months, videoblogs will be introduced to the website. The first installment will be a short, largely introductory item in which I’ll be introducing myself, what I do, what my vision is on menswear, where I’m going and what my goals are, and for later installments of the videoblogs, I’ll be going more in depth on a number of very interesting subjects like measuring, fitting, and even drafting and a “making of” of the clothing I make. There is also going to be a nice influx of articles on both the shirts I’ve been making for the past year, as well as my progression in learning how to make suits.

- Ruben Bakker