Why Belgian Influence Rules Fashion Today

With strong determination, clear design signatures and the ability to tell vivid stories through the clothes worn, Belgian and Belgian-trained designers dominate fashion today.

“I think it’s the right time for them because we’re in a time where it’s very important to express yourself through fashion. And they’ve learned to work with clothes in a certain way. [that] it expresses a lot,” said Walter Van Beirendonck, one of the original Antwerp Six who catapulted the small European city to global fashion fame 40 years ago. “Fashion requires this kind of deep thinking.”

He was interviewed on Friday night at the opening of an exhibition dedicated to The Antwerp Six at MoMu, where some designers, educators and curators were asked about the great influence of society and graduates of its famous schools – the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and La Cambre in Brussels.

Chanel, Hermès, Gucci, Prada, Saint Laurent, Versace, Balmain, Tom Ford, Maison Margiela, Diesel, Rabanne and Marni are some of the European houses that currently boast Belgian-born or leading Belgian designers – not forgetting outstanding local talents such as Kris Van Asschents, Christian Julien, Olivier, Saint Saint, Olivier Desschens, Olivier Desschen, Saint Saint of Belgium Kegels and Marie Adam-Leenaerdt, to name just a few.

Van Beirendonck and other important members of the Six – led by Dries Van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester – are still the organizers of Paris Fashion Week, even if the latter two have left the runway and passed the design cords to other talents.

“You go to Britain for an idea; to France for something [that] it is about the body; to Italy for textiles; America for sportswear. What you get in Belgium is a combination of intelligence and performance,” said milliner Stephen Jones, who has created other world-class tops for Van Beirendonck for decades.

Plus, “it’s not about the season or the pretty image, it’s really about making something that people want to buy,” Jones said in an interview. The reason they have a business is because people wanted to wear their clothes.

Belgians “often find the right balance between fantasy and reality,” Van Noten admitted. “There is always a solid foundation.

He explained: “We had to do things differently because we were not part of the fashion system. “We questioned the fashion system: how things are made, how they are sold, how they are promoted, how they are advertised.

“For me, everything became clear when I started doing fashion shows, because fashion shows gave me the opportunity to tell a complete story, that it wasn’t just about making clothes, but you also showed the kind of models, lighting, hair, makeup, music. It was really like making a game,” he enthused.

“I think it’s always good to be an outsider, and Antwerp was like that at the time [when The Antwerp Six emerged]it wasn’t really a fashion city,” agrees Linda Loppa, who has assisted at the MoMu museum and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts fashion school in her long career, which began as a designer and retailer.

One of the world’s great ports, Antwerp has long welcomed and welcomed new industries – be it the diamond trade or printing – and new ideas in science, philosophy and art.

“Maybe we’re a culture that takes things seriously, whether it’s food, art, literature, fashion design or industrial design,” Loppa said. “In this sense, it makes what we do even stronger.”

Many observers also point to the value of fashion and design education in Belgium, including Raf Simons, who studied industrial design and furniture at the LUCA School of Art in Genk, and Pieter Mulier, a design student at the Brussels Institut Saint-Luc.

“I think our education system is different. It’s not creative, it’s very open and it has different groups,” said Mulier, who spent most of his fashion career working with Simons – at his signature site, Jil Sander, Christian Dior and Calvin Klein – before taking the helm of design at Maison Alaïa and, starting July 1, at Versace.

Mulier also credits The Antwerp Six for paving the way that inspired generations of designers.

“We grew up with all this, [the Six] to show that it was possible to do something different and there is still success in other countries,” he said: “They were not the first; of the Japanese [designers] it came first. But it showed us that everything is possible from a small country. We are in Flanders. It is even smaller in Belgium. ”

Simons, Prada’s co-director from 2020, admitted the Sixth Designer model, along with maverick Belgian Martin Margiela, provided a lot of “motivation and inspiration” at the beginning of his career. “I was in the middle of the situation because I did an internship at Walter [Van Beirendonck] for two years,” he said in an interview with him.

The Neerpelt-born designer said that experiencing “its smallness, or its smallness compared to today’s businesses,” made getting into fashion seem more difficult than it might be today.

He said: “When I started at 195, I still didn’t know anything, and I thought, ‘Let’s make clothes and hope that a few people will like them.’ We didn’t think about buildings and programs.

Wijnants, who graduated from the Royal Academy in 2000 and launched her eponymous brand in 2003, did not talk about the difficult nature of her fashion education.

When I studied there, there were about 200 people who applied, only 60 entered the first year, and we graduated with 12 people,” he said in an interview at his store in Antwerp. “So you work hard to succeed and advance next year. It was a healthy competition, but it was very stressful. I think that helps build strong creators who can survive.”

Students were taught to never be satisfied with their designs, and were forced by professors to “go further, make it stronger, improve it more, they were very demanding of perfection,” he recalled.

They also had to introspect to find their true style.

“What they teach you at school is to be true. I think this word ‘truth’ is the one that best describes Belgian designers, because everyone does their own thing and doesn’t look left or right,” said Wijnants.

Van Beirendonck, who was head of the Royal Academy’s fashion department from 2007 to 2022, called “storytelling” an important part of education.

“We’re trying to be very deep, and [students] they have a four-year opportunity to work hard to sign and go deeper into their world. You work very hard together with your teachers, and you have to create an impression, you have to present your clothes. It is very powerful and very demanding. ”

Kaat Debo, director of MoMu, noted that the Royal Academy has “expanded internationally like crazy” since the days of The Antwerp Six, now attracting students from more than 35 different nationalities.

He said: “The school has the luxury of attracting top talent from around the world – and that is an important change. “But they focus on the individual approach – especially on one person. Drawing is still very important in the course and, of course, getting your signature.”

According to Floriane de Saint Pierre, who runs a search and consulting firm in Paris, it’s important to understand “the path to attention.”

Although The Antwerp Six were influenced by extensive media coverage and powerful retailers of many brands hungry for new stories, the following generations of Belgian- or Belgium-trained creative directors benefited from fashion awards, especially the ANDAM prize, or to launch their products in Paris, as Anthony Vaccarello did before joining Saint Laurent; Haider Ackermann before being hired by Berluti, Canada Goose or Tom Ford, and Demna and Vetements before being taken over by Balenciaga and then Gucci.

Others found “in-house career development” at an important training ground like Maison Margiela, where the likes of Nadège Vanhée (Hermès), Julian Klausner (Dries Van Noten) and Matthieu Blazy (Chanel) all got their start. (Like Mulier, Blazy also worked under Simon, who gave birth to his own unofficial fashion school.)

Also, since Belgium had no legacy of fashion houses to build on, design education there combines “intelligence, practicality – a lot of it comes from creativity or innovation – and a clear understanding of where society is headed,” said Saint Pierre.

Meryll Rogge, who founded her signature label six years ago and is also the creative director of Marni in Milan, credited her Belgian fashion education for learning to think for herself.

He said: “There is no strict guide on how to behave as a Belgian designer. “Everyone follows his intuition and way of creating.”

In addition, “Belgians have a good work ethic. And passion is more than pride,” he said. The passion for craft and work is the most important thing for us, more than the internet or the beauty.