\n\tHe was interviewed Friday night at the opening of an exhibition dedicated to The Antwerp Six at MoMu<\/a>, where other designers, educators and curators were quizzed about the enormous impact of the nation and graduates of its famous schools \u2014 the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp<\/a> and La Cambre in Brussels.<\/p>\n \n\tChanel, Herm\u00e8s, Gucci, Prada, Saint Laurent, Versace, Balmain, Tom Ford, Maison Margiela, Diesel, Rabanne and Marni are just some of the European houses that currently boast Belgian-born or Belgium-schooled designers at the helm \u2014 not forgetting such notable homegrown talents as Kris Van Assche, Olivier Theyskens, Christian Wijnants, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Julie Kegels and Marie Adam-Leenaerdt, to name but a few.<\/p>\n \n\tVan Beirendonck and other key members of the Six \u2014 headlined by Dries Van Noten<\/a> and Ann Demeulemeester \u2014 remain fixtures of Paris Fashion Week, even if the latter two have retired from the runway and passed the design reins to other talents.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tA spring 2026 look from Walter Van Beirendonck<\/a>. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Conu\/Courtesy of MoMu<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYou go to Britain for a concept; to France for something [that] is about the body; to Italy for fabrics; America for sportswear. What you come to Belgium for is a combination of the intellect and the practicality,\u201d said milliner Stephen Jones, who has done otherworldly toppers for Van Beirendonck for decades. \u201cIt\u2019s not that they\u2019re not ambitious, but they go for the solid, long path.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhat\u2019s more, \u201cit\u2019s not about this season or the fabulous image, it\u2019s actually about making something that people want to buy,\u201d Jones said in an interview. \u201cThe reason they have a business is because people wanted to wear their clothes. It wasn\u2019t PR puff.\u2026There is a steadfastness.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBelgians \u201coften find the right balance between dream and reality,\u201d Van Noten agreed. \u201cIt\u2019s always quite grounded.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe had to do things in a different way because we were not part of the fashion system,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe questioned the fashion system: how things are made, sold, promoted, communicated.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cFor me, it all became clear the moment I started to do fashion shows, because fashion shows gave me really the possibility to tell a full story, that it was not only making clothes, but also you were showing the type of models, the lighting, the hair, the makeup, the music. It was really kind of like making a play,\u201d he enthused.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tDries Van Noten<\/a> spring 2013 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJeremie Leconte\/Courtesy of MoMu<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI think it\u2019s always good to be a little bit of an outsider and Antwerp<\/a> was, at that time [when The Antwerp Six emerged], it was not really a fashion city,\u201d agreed Linda Loppa, who has helmed the MoMu fashion museum and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts\u2019 fashion school in her long career, which started as a designer and retailer. \u201cBut it was always a city based on art and culture.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOne of the world\u2019s major seaports, Antwerp has long welcomed and hosted new industries \u2014 whether the diamond trade or printing \u2014 plus new thinking in science, philosophy and the arts.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe are probably a culture that takes things seriously, whether it\u2019s food, art, literature, fashion design or industrial design,\u201d Loppa said. \u201cIn that sense, it makes it more profound what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMost observers also pointed to the quality of fashion and design educations in Belgium, including Raf Simons<\/a>, who studied industrial and furniture design at Genk\u2019s LUCA School of Arts, and Pieter Mulier<\/a>, an architecture graduate from the Brussels Institut Saint-Luc.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI think our education system is different. It\u2019s less molding, it\u2019s much more open and interdisciplinary,\u201d said Mulier, who spent most of his fashion career working with Simons \u2014 at his signature label, Jil Sander, Christian Dior and Calvin Klein \u2014 before taking the design helm of Maison Ala\u00efa and, starting July 1, Versace<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tMulier also credited The Antwerp Six for pioneering a pathway that has inspired generations of designers.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe grew up with all of this, [the Six] showing that it was possible to do something different and still succeed internationally,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were not the first; the Japanese [designers] came before. But it showed us that everything is possible from a small country. We\u2019re in Flanders. It\u2019s even smaller than Belgium.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tPieter Mulier<\/a> and Raf Simons<\/a> underneath articles about The Antwerp Six in WWD and DNR.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBOY KORTEKAAS\/Courtesy of MoMu<\/p>\n \n\tSimons, co-creative director of Prada since 2020, agreed the example of the Six, plus maverick Belgian designer Martin Margiela, provided much \u201cmotivation and stimulation\u201d early in his career. \u201cI was in the middle of the situation because I did an internship at Walter [Van Beirendonck] for two years,\u201d he related in an interview.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Neerpelt-born designer said having experienced \u201cthe smallness of it, or relative smallness of it compared to businesses today,\u201d made entering fashion seem less daunting than it might be today.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhen I started in \u201995, I was still very naive and thinking like, \u2018Let\u2019s just make clothes and hopefully a few people will like it,’\u201d he said. \u201cThat was more the thinking. We weren\u2019t thinking about structures and shows.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWijnants, who graduated from the Royal Academy in 2000 and launched his eponymous label in 2003, did not mince words about how demanding his fashion education was.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s so competitive, and the level is quite high. When I studied there, there were about 200 people applying, only 60 got in in the first year, and we graduated with 12 people,\u201d he said in an interview at his Antwerp boutique. \u201cSo you work really hard to to succeed and to progress to the next year. It was a healthy competition, but it was very stressful. I think that helps building really strong designers who can survive.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tStudents were taught to never be satisfied with their designs, and compelled by professors to \u201cgo further and further, make it stronger, make it even better, being very perfectionist,\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n \n\tThey were also compelled to drill down to discover their own true style.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhat they teach you in the academy is to be authentic. I think this word \u2018authentic\u2019 is really what describes best the designers in Belgium, because everybody\u2019s just doing his or her own thing and not looking to the left or to the right,\u201d Wijnants said.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tChristian Wijnants fall 2026<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Christian Wijnants<\/p>\n \n\tVan Beirendonck, who was head of the Royal Academy\u2019s fashion department from to 2007 until 2022, called \u201cstorytelling\u201d a key element of the education. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe try to go very deep, and [students] have the possibility over four years to really work on the signature and go very deep in their own world,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very important period in their life to have the possibility to develop their own signatures. You work very intensely together with your teachers, and you have to create an opinion, you have to present your garments. It\u2019s very intense and very demanding also.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tKaat Debo, director of MoMu, noted that the Royal Academy has \u201cinternationalized like crazy\u201d since the days of The Antwerp Six, now attracting students of more than 35 different nationalities.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe school has the luxury of attracting top talent from all over the world. And that\u2019s an important evolution,\u201d she said. \u201cBut they really focus on an individual approach \u2014 a lot of one-to-one. Teaching drawing is still a very important element in the training and, of course, finding your own signature.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAccording to Floriane de Saint Pierre, who operates a namesake executive search and consulting firm in Paris, it\u2019s key to understand \u201cthe path to recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhile The Antwerp Six were propelled by wide press coverage and powerful multibrand retailers hungry for new stories, subsequent generations of Belgian- or Belgium-trained creative directors benefited from fashion awards, particularly the ANDAM prize, or from launching their own brands in Paris, as Anthony Vaccarello did before joining Saint Laurent; Haider Ackermann before being recruited by Berluti, Canada Goose or Tom Ford, and Demna with Vetements before being snatched up by Balenciaga and later Gucci.<\/p>\n \n\tOthers received \u201cin-house professional development\u201d at a key training ground like Maison Margiela, where the likes of Nad\u00e8ge Vanh\u00e9e (Herm\u00e8s), Julian Klausner (Dries Van Noten) and Matthieu Blazy (Chanel) all got their start. (Like Mulier, Blazy also worked under Simon, who spawned his own unofficial fashion school.)<\/p>\n \n\tAlso, since Belgium did not have an established heritage of fashion houses upon which to build, the creative education there unites \u201cintellect, function \u2014 quite a few come from architecture or design \u2014 and a prescient sense of where society was heading,\u201d de Saint Pierre said.<\/p>\n \n\tMeryll 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 how to think independently.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThere\u2019s no strict guideline on how to behave as a Belgian designer,\u201d she said. \u201cEverybody really follows his own intuition and way to create.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn addition, \u201cBelgians do have quite a hard work ethic. And the passion surpasses the ego,\u201d she said. \u201cThe passion for the craft and for the job is the most important thing for us, more than the networking or the glamour. We\u2019re in it for what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tMeryll Rogge spring 2026<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Meryll Rogge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Possessed of a steely resolve, clear design signatures and an ability to tell vivid stories with wearable clothes,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[19,7,6021,6159,6160,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-9530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-antwerp","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-dries-van-noten","11":"tag-pieter-mulier","12":"tag-raf-simons","13":"tag-walter-van-beirendonck"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116319454678855897","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wwd.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-wwd-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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