Anyone hungry to know how Belgium became one of the great super-generators of world-class fashion talent should beat a swift path to “The Antwerp Six,” the 40th anniversary exhibition of the group at the MoMu fashion museum in the city. The opening last Friday was a phenomenal social reunion: testament to the Belgian bonds and attitudes that quietly and powerfully permeate fashion today.
Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, and Walter Van Beirendonck were talking through the installations they’d created, each in their own magical worlds. Pieter Mulier—who’s moved back to Antwerp before taking over at Versace—was admiring Dirk Bikkemberg’s installation, and reminiscing over how he bought his signature boots as a kid. Raf Simons was embracing Linda Loppa, the godmother of generations of avant-garde designers at the Antwerp Academy. Meryll Rogge of Marni was delighting at Dirk Van Saene’s recreation of an automaton “show” on a moving circuit. More crowds of Belgium’s creative family were paying their respects at the evocation of the late Marina Yee’s studio, marveling at the blow-ups of her fluidly energetic drawings lining the walls.
The origin story of how a group of indie students from Antwerp Academy pioneered a phenomenal reputation for their small northwestern European country is legendary. Banding together under the wing of the Antwerp retailer Geert Bruloot, they hired a truck and drove to London to exhibit their clothes in 1987, and then staged an off-schedule guerilla show at Westway film studios (which got them kicked out of London Fashion Week by the British Fashion Council). All this is documented in editorial cuttings, videos, and all the flyers, invitations, and precociously packaged image catalogues each designer produced.
As Dries Van Noten remembered, the Antwerp Six’s story began in the classroom where all of the cohort were defining their separate identities, rebelling against the strait-laced teacher who decreed ladylike chic, while being inspired by the do-it-yourself attitude of London punk. “There’s always been kind of a competition between us, constructive competition. You’re a bunch of friends, yes, and we wanted to have fun, but on the other hand, we wanted to create our collectsions and our worlds, and to succeed,” he said.
When they went to London—unlike other student newcomers of the time—the six were already practiced at producing their own branding imagery. They’d got that together on their own initiative in class. “We weren’t taught that. Everybody had their own photographer we found in school. All those teams were formed together back then. And of course, Ann Demeulemeester already had her boyfriend Patrick Robyn.”
Demeulemeester and Robyn married before she started her brand. His evocative photography, capturing many of the designers’ early collectsions, is all over the exhibition and the accompanying book. Their son, Victor Robyn, who many will remember as a child, walking with his mom at the end of her Paris shows in the ’90s, is the exhibition’s graphic designer.
Demeulemeester herself was standing in the darkened room she’d designed. Tall, attenuated silhouettes in black standing on smoky mirrored platforms emerged from the dark. Long bias skirts, sliding leather belts, feathered jewelry, elegantly asymmetric jackets, the glint of metallic knitwear. “I wanted an atmosphere like you are in the night, and the silhouettes are standing on water. And it’s a very cold moonlight.”
It crystallized everything about Demeuleemester’s passionate career—her integrity, the wholeness of the world she created until she left her brand in 2014, to pursue her art and furniture projects. “I selected them just like it was my friends that I was picking, okay, yes, let’s take her. Let’s take him. Not thinking too much,” she smiled. “Just showing what is the real thing, the clothes. What Ann Demeuleemeester is about.”
Walter Van Beirendonck was a year ahead of the others at the Academy, in the same class as Martin Margiela. “It was great, because we both came from a small village without knowing what was going to happen in the school.” In fact, the only thing that sparking off each other produced—as well as joining Antwerp's underground performance scene, in Van Beirendonck’s case—was a determination to be completely himself. His cheerful, colorful, playful collectsions are a pioneering statement of queer pride against dark times, championing safe sex and anti-racism. They make as much impact now—in fact, they’re a collectsing craze today—as they did in the late ’80s. “For me, it’s not just making clothes, it’s telling stories, but also showing engagement in the world.” In the exhibition, a digital “Walter” face, implanted in a hoodie, conducts a conversation with his imaginary robot friend Puk-Puk, which stands opposite. Walter’s cheery face beams out hope in creativity to the new generation facing difficult times.
“Limitations are just invitations to think different. The best way to predict the future is to create it. So I keep pushing,” Van Beirendonck said.
Walter, as everybody calls him, was Professor of Fashion at the Academy for many years himself, succeeding Linda Loppa. What’s the secret sauce of the school that’s generated so many generations of talent? “It’s an incredible school which is giving the students a good platform. It goes deep. To be able to work four years without distraction on your own identity is rather unique. I still can see what they did in the school that was really the base for their career. For Demna, for everyone.”
Walter’s influence has generated countless talents. Olivier Rizzo, one of fashion’s major stylists (a contemporary of fellow alums photographer Willy Vanderperre and makeup artist Peter Philips), came up and hugged the designer. “Without him, I wouldn’t be who I am. Walter is really my ultimate mentor. Me—and of a whole bunch of fashion kids, because we were hardcore obsessed with fashion,” he said. “Walter always believed in me and always saw the right thing in me, and always pushed me.”
Raf Simons, too, had his first fashion internship at Walter Van Beirendonck after being turned down for a place at the Academy by Linda Loppa. They were laughing together about that. “I told him the Academy would kill him! He’d studied industrial and furniture design,” Loppa said. “He didn’t need it.”
The exhibition, mounted by MoMu’s chief curator Kaat Debo with guest curators Geert Bruloot and Romy Cockx, gives each designer their own self-directed space, while supplying an excellent deep dive into the social, political, and economic conditions that spring-boarded the unlikely but historic takeoff of the group. Part self-initiated, it was also backed by an enlightened socialist government that launched the Golden Spindle prize for emerging fashion talent, and introduced them to Belgian manufacturers and mills. The founding of MoMu itself, one of the best centers of modern fashion exhibition thinking in the world, has a lot to do with the constant generation and regeneration of creative culture radiating from this small port city.
All these factors have combined to make Belgium punch way above its weight in the international landscape. The Antwerp Six’s integrity, ambition, and work ethic—plus their collaborations with their classmate photographers, stylists, graphic designers, makeup artists, set designers, and show producers—forged a phenomenon which set the example for all who’ve followed out of the country.
“You know, it’s all intertwined here,” observed Pieter Mulier, who studied architecture in Brussels before Raf Simons plucked him to work for him. “Raf was on my [graduation] jury. This is how it happens here. I think it has something to do with our education, and the role models you have. We grew up with all of this,” he said, gesturing around the exhibition, “showing that it was possible to do something different, and still succeed internationally. Yes, I think our education system is different. It’s less molding. It’s much more open.”
Whether they’re the graduates of the Antwerp Academy or La Cambre in Brussels, or from others of the country’s art and design schools, the current headcount of Belgian and Belgian-educated creative directors across luxury fashion is quite staggering. There’s Raf Simons at Prada, Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, Demna at Gucci, Nadège Vanhée at Hermès, Anthony Vaccarello at Saint Laurent, Pieter Mulier at Versace, Julien Dossena at Rabanne, Nicolas Di Felice, late of Courrèges (and doubtless bound for elsewhere soon), and Meryll Rogge at Marni.
What’s for certain: It’s a Belgian momentum that will carry on into the next generation. And different as they all may be, there’s one more special characteristic that other countries don’t have: the down-to-earth normality and friendship. A last word goes to Meryll Rogge, Antwerp Academy Class of 2008, on the formative experience of her school days. “I’m gonna say something very controversial,” she laughed. “It’s a non-teaching approach. Of course, you have a few side things that you have, like theoretical classes, but it’s really about the six, nine, or 12 looks that you have to make and you figure it out. They don’t teach you how to sew. They don’t teach you how to pattern-make. Well, only a little bit. Of course, I exaggerate, but you’re really taught about how to be independent and how to figure it out. And this helps me today. You learn to think for yourself. What do you like, what do you want to say, what do you want to talk about in your collectsions? And to work really hard.” And then she added, with a big smile, “and you know, we all had a really good relationship with our peers. We stick together. And that’s why we have such a good bond after all these years.”
