The Joyce van Heek biography

Heiress to an east Netherlands textile emporium. It's in her blood, she grew up in fashion. It's not surprising she started designing. But she choose an unconventional path, one with obstacles and looks of disapproval. But she's faced them and overcome: her passion for leather has inspired the best designs and feeling of liberation.

Joyce (44) finished her practical training as a fashion designer after doing her time at vocational college. She worked in garment wholesale, where she moved up through the ranks. After years of taking orders and stress, she knew that it was time to start her own business.

A period of introspection led her to focus on her passion: leather. She had ideas and she wanted to bring them alive. Leather had to become free of taboo, less misogynist and liberated from seedy boutiques. Stylish, sexy, soft-erotic. She opened her own shop in 1994 along an up-market canal in Amsterdam where she created her own line of erotic clothing: Lust for Leather.

She has since moved up to an workplace at Enschede and Lindengracht-Amsterdam ,and built up a loyal clientele. People like wearing leather, whether at private parties or erotica conventions, even during day-to-day work. Some can't even get through a day without a whiff of leather.Luckily, there's Joyce, with her Lust for Leather.