AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Instead of selling sex, Amsterdam is trying to sell sexy.

The city unveiled its “Red Light Fashion” project on Saturday, having converted 16 buildings that used to house prostitutes in the city’s ancient red light district into studios for young fashion designers.

The idea was born out of the government’s desire to crack down on crime in the area. But many neighbors are displeased with the high-class newcomers in an area that thrives on its seedy reputation, and even the designers say they are taking a risk.

“I’m very curious whether my clients will come here,” said Jan Taminiau, one of 10 up-and-coming designers awarded space on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal, a central street in the red light district.

“I’m sure that some people will be hesitant … but I think most of the clients that I have — I only make made-to-measure — they’ll think it’s fun to come here.”

Amsterdam politicians are convinced that radical change is needed in the red light district, and are spending lavishly to bring it about.

The area has been a center of prostitution since Amsterdam’s golden age in the 1600s. After World War II, it became a major tourist attraction, along with coffee shops where marijuana is sold openly.

Although prostitution was formally legalized in 2001, the industry remains rife with corruption, from businessmen who own the buildings using them to launder money, to criminal gangs and pimps exploiting the women working there, to petty crime caused by dealers and junkies that frequent the area.

The city paid $40 million to buy the 16 buildings from a businessman last year. Altogether they housed about a third of the windows where prostitutes beckon to customers and take them into a small adjoining room for sex.

The designers are living rent-free in the studios for the first year.

“It’s time to attack criminality much harder and much more effectively than we’ve been able to do in the past years,” the vice-mayor, Lodewijk Asscher, said Saturday at a champagne ceremony marking the reopening of the buildings.

After his speech, crowds of journalists, fashion models, designers and others set out into the narrow streets of the red light district to look at the results of the revamp.

Many prostitutes are illegal immigrants or have families that do not know what they do. Several were visibly angered at seeing camera crews in what is normally strictly a no-photo zone, making obscene gestures or yanking their curtains shut.

Jan Broers, who owns Royal Taste hotel and pub directly across the street, and operates several of the remaining prostitution windows, said it was unfair to force some businesses to undergo heavy financial vetting while others are given space rent-free.

And the idea of mixing fashion with prostitution was poorly thought out, he said: Clothes are sold during the day, while the district mostly comes alive at night. And there is not much overlap in customers. “It’s not good for business,” he said.

From Reuters: Skimpy skirts and revealing tops are making way for designer gowns and luxury hand bags in Amsterdam’s red light district as part of a drive to ditch the area’s seedy image.

Fifteen young Dutch designers opened stores in former brothels on Saturday, displaying their creations in the tall windows where prostitutes recently sat touting for business.

“It is time for a change here,” deputy mayor of Amsterdam Lodewijk Asscher said at the launch of the city-backed fashion push.

“Amsterdammers ought to able to feel proud of this area.”

The city council is getting tough on the 800 year-old red-light district, pledging to stamp out crime and human trafficking by revoking the licences of suspect sex clubs and brothels, including some of the industry’s best-known names.

By allowing the designers to occupy former brothels for a year free of charge it hopes to breathe new life into the area and attract visitors more interested in shopping than ogling sex workers.

But the “Red-light fashion” project has angered local window prostitutes.

“The women here fear it will affect their earnings because the shops will bring the kind of visitor who wants nothing to do with them,” said Metje Blaak of the sex workers union.

Many in the tourist industry acknowledge the red light district — a warren of narrow alleys and canals lined with sex shops, peep shows and brothels — is as big an attraction as Amsterdam’s art museums and coffee shops, where marijuana is smoked and sold. “They’d lose so much money if they shut it down,” said 25-year-old English tourist Max, who said the drugs and the women had attracted him to Amsterdam.

The city’s new tougher line is part of a wider trend in the Netherlands of tightening laws sanctioning coffee shops and prostitution.

Under current plans up to a third of all the sex windows and brothels could close.

Fashion designer Edwin Oudshoorn told the first visitors to his shop he hoped he could work side-by-side with the prostitutes.

The 27-year-old has ripped out the neon lights and put up yellow wallpaper to show off his womenswear collection.

“When I first came in here it was really disgusting, but within a week I made it my own,” he said.