It seems rather appropriate to spend the month before the Royal Academy SHOW in Antwerp  celebrating the issue of A that has more involvement and intimacy with the prestigious school than any other. NºA is, after all, curated by a teacher of the school, and very much centred around it’s graduate designers and surrounding figures.

For the story “Academy Awards”, Angelique Westerhof looks into the school itself, and what it is about the place that has produced generations of such talented and successful designers. Her insightful text, with quotes from Linda Loppa, is accompanied by Elisabeth Broekaert’s snapshots of the students at work, in the previous academy space before their move to the present location, above the MoMu in the ModeNatie building.

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Text by Angelique Westerhof, 2004

“The rooms might have belonged to any other academy in Europe. Let’s put it this way: they definitely do not have fashion written all over them. The fashion department at the Royal Academy in Antwerp is now spending its final days at this breeding ground in Kammenstraat, and will soon be setting up shop in the ModeNatie. Two factors link together the individual classrooms and the corridors – high windows and a fine diffused light. One big window on the city of Antwerp.

So much has been written about this academy since the furore created by the ‘Antwerp Six’ in the early eighties. Even more has been written since the success of the young designers who, year after year, have established themselves in the international bastions of fashion. The focus has always been on the designers. This year Linda Loppa has been at the helm of the academy for exactly twenty years.

Looking back, how does she explain the evolution of the academy
“All at once it was filled with individuals who, each in their own way, were all smoothing the path to greater goals. We all sought movement, performed crossovers, and kept on pushing hard at the self-confidence of Belgian fashion culture.”

“One of the things that probably satisfies me most is that we have all been able to develop as we wanted, and that everyone has ended up where they should. Students and generations come and go, times and obstacles change, but it is very good if as a team you are able to absorb the ups and downs.”

She praises Walter Van Beirendonck who, just like her, started teaching shortly after graduating and has continued to do so weekly for the last eighteen years. How does he think the academy distinguishes itself from others in Europe?
“Our whole team of lecturers opts for a very mature, direct and personal teacher-student relationship right from the first year. I think that I enjoy teaching and do it well because I can put myself and my point of view to one side in the class and find it wonderful to explore the identity of the person in front of me.”

The Royal Academy of Fine Arts is not a private school, but is run by the state and is therefore by definition open to anyone. The advantage of this is that a natural and honest selection takes place. You could not buy your way in at any price. The downside is that the academy is known for its four-year ruthless knock-out race that leaves only the true stars standing. Sometimes, as was the case this year, it may be that only four people make it to the finishing line; it is rightly the survival of the fittest.

Linda Loppa says, “There are so many factors that lead to people dropping out along the way. I wouldn’t want to call it a knock-out race, since standards have always been high. It is not a question of a large number of graduates but a good number. It is all about people who are ready to stand on their own two feet in the fashion world.”

Thos who wish to untangle the secret behind the success of generations of Antwerp Academy designers must realise the one thing above all. That this is a strong, close family. It is the people that make the academy what it is; the sum of generations of students of varying nationalities in an individual quest for their identity, guided by a cohesive team of tutors.

Those who wish to be schooled in the Antwerp spirit will have to surrender to the calm, serene undercurrent from which everything essential is communicated. These are Antwerp essentials, such as full and constructive dialogue between tutors and students, in which no word is spoken to excess and where there is respect for each other’s space. They will have to surrender to such Antwerp values as a thorough knowledge of patterns and research into forms. The Antwerp mentality, the steady concentration, the sense of reality combined with professionalism.

In the corridors small groups of young designers of widely varying nationalities gather together. They do not appear to have lost touch with their background in this melting pot, but they gradually seem to adopt a second identity which you can truly discern and recognise as the work and attitude of those trained in Antwerp. Part of these students’ elusive success lies in the tension that arises in these minds whose training is based on polarities.

The Academy of Antwerp is mysterious and direct, dogged and playful, open and closed, ambitious but realistic. Experimental but grounded in traditional values. A secretive, silent fashion movement, one that is extremely beautiful in its organic process of growth.