At the Delvaux HQ in Brussels, this February marked the unveiling of an exclusive collaboration between the luxury leather-goods house and Antwerpian fashion designer (the curator of NºA) Dirk Van Saene.

Van Saene was approached by the Delvaux Studio to design a scarf for their ever-expanding collection, joining the ranks of Belgian names such as Hannelore Knuts & Bruno Pieters who have collaborated with the heritage brand in the past. Dirk’s realization of the challenge presents us with two visually seductive silk carrés, articulating the designer’s whimsy and encapsulating Delvaux’s iconic handbag, aptly named the “Brilliant.”
The print, a reproduction of a painting by Van Saene, exists in contrasting colourways to represent “Jour,” framed by vibrant yellow and “Nuit” by red.

This collaboration sees Van Saene take on the role of both designer and artist – through his evolving creative expression, sculpture. Dirk applied his playful craftsmanship to mould ten ceramic vessels on which to present the scarves, with each bust depicting the face of a celebrated fashion model from the 50s to the present, including Twiggy, Alek Wek and Belgium’s own Anouck Lepere.

Buy Dirk Van Saene for Delvaux here.

“Anouck Lepere” bust by Dirk Van Saene.

Above: “Alek Wek” bust by Dirk Van Saene.

“Twiggy” bust by Dirk Van Saene.

Above: Delvaux par Dirk Van Saene, “Jour” scarf.

Above: Delvaux par Dirk Van Saene, “Nuit” scarf.

Above: Leather scarf loops by Dirk Van Saene for Delvaux, with his signature bow.

Text by Christie Fels, Antwerp.
Photography by by2 photographers.

NºA is certainly no lookbook or selfish retrospective, but rather an homage to those who have inspired Dirk Van Saene and in turn those whom he has encouraged and promoted through his work as a teacher.

For the piece “Astonishing Souvenirs”, Dirk selected the work of five designers who came before him, by researching past magazine editorials from the 1960s to the 1980s for specific outfits, finding “fashion moments” that he connected with. Taking these photographs, Belgian illustrator Madeleine Wermenbol translated them into an abstract graphic series, outlining the garments with lines of text that describe each piece and the feel of each designer’s collection.

The editorial pictures are sourced from the pages of magazines such as i-D and L’Officiel, and feature designers as diverse as André Courrèges in the late 60s to early 80s Vivienne Westwood and 2001 Junya Watanabe, Madeleine’s interpretation of the classic fashion images paints a minimal, pared back vision of the actual garments, while the text within each line describes with more detail.

Although not the most sensual experience of fashion, this series is an interesting historical exercise into the archives of the 20th century, and stretches our imagination and personal knowledge, to link the aesthetic of the era with the faceless, textureless diagrams.

Above:

André Courrèges
Spring Summer 1965
Photographed by Willy Rizzo
Seen in Marie Claire – 1st March 1965

“HAT. Panama Hat with band under the chin.”

“This suit with a dress is in wool gabardine alternatively smooth and striped. Unisex. Geometric. Stiff fabrics. Futuristic. Symbol: A marguerite daisy.”

“The skirt is slightly flared. Straight neck with small collar. Pocket flaps.”

“White gloves”

“Calf length boots in goat leather with open tip. Bow at the front.”

Yves Saint Laurent
Autumn Winter 1969-70
Photographed by Roland Bianchini
Seen in L’Officiel – September 1969 – page 19

“Scarf round the head.”

“Roll neck”

“Jacket in brown mink. As well as the fringes at the edges of hems and sleeves. Slightly flared.”

“Under this jacket a short tunic dress in beige tweed.”

“On the hips a belt of large metal rings.”

“Thigh-high boots designed by Roger Vivier for Yves Saint Laurent.”

Jean Paul Gaultier
Spring Summer 1981
Photographed by Gunnar Larsen
Seen in Avantgarde – no. 2, 1981 – page 40

“Earrings made from the base of a tin can.”

“A pleated jabot as a top.”

“Fun. Humour. Revolutionary.”

“Rolled-up shorts entirely in foil with a wide waist that folds back over a belt.”

“Bracelets made out of open-ended cans.”

Vivienne Westwood
Autumn Winter 1982
Photographed by James Palmer
Seen in i-D – no. 8, 1982 – page 38

“Uncompromising, anarchic, anti-establishment.”

“This Buffalo collection includes swirling petticoats, ruffles, prairie hats, baggy boots.”

“Underwear is worn as outerwear. Bras are worn over dresses.”

“Bashed-in hats, printed zest hoods, skirts with large prints and leather trim, leather frock coats, toga dresses and bras.”

“New shape. Squares. Up on top and down below.”

Junya Watanabe
Autumn Winter 2000-01
Photographed by Peter Stigter
Seen in Slam – October 2000 – page 18

“Turquoise.”

“Seventy layers of Ester chintz were cut into a unique pattern by laser.”

“The layers were sewn together at alternating connecting points.”

“The dresses (or are they jackets) unfold like paper lanterns. They were delivered to the shops folded up.”

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.

* * *

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.

AMAZE.  A personal vision on contemporary makeup.

Included in Dirk Van Saene’s NºA is this series of natural beauties enhanced by the brush of Inge Grognard, photographed by her husband Ronald Stoops.  Featuring five of Belgium’s top faces in 2001, this shoot was realised in large-scale posters, folding out from the pages of NºA – with Inge’s signature of striking, abstract makeup styles that stray far from the conventional glamour of ‘fashion’, to explore more unusual and artistic shapes and lines that distort and frame the face.

Each portrait depicts a strong and iconic model of the moment – from Laura Delicata, entirely pale faced without a visible fleck of makeup to Ann Oost, whose fine blond hair is painted with a thick stripe of black paint;  Kim Peers, with a strong jawline framed in gold paper, Roos with her cheeks traced in black and mouth powdered in a shocking white like a trompe l’oeil gag mask; and Hannelore Knuts with crystals at the corners of her lips.

Ronald captures an effortless cool in each image, as the girls stare through his lens with a calm feminine power, accented by Inge’s work to create an essence of primal and tribal sensuality.

Above: Kim Peers @ Vision.

Above: Ann Oost @ Dominique.

Above: Roos @ Vision.

Above: Hannelore Knuts @ Vision.

A decade ago, former-DUTCH editor and Madame Figaro editor Elisabeth Paillié wrote her Antwerp story – speaking as a regular visitor, explorer and lover of the city. She speaks of people and places, and the warm feeling that comes from a friendly, more relaxed city than her hometown of Paris. If one compared her account to the present day, in ten years it seems very little has changed.

The biggest evolution has been around the people, not the place. It is people who are more dynamic – remaining anything but stagnant since 2001. Today we see the former Academy director Linda Loppa now at Polimoda in Florence, with Walter Van Beirendonck taking her place in Antwerp. No longer with the Louis store, Geert Bruloot is instead at the helm of Coccodrillo with Eddy Michiels, and curating Stephen Jones’ exhibition at MoMu (opening in September). Many others have come and gone, but there are still more than a few who remain stalwart in their dedication to Antwerp, to its changes and its unwavering institutions.

Reading through the veritable ‘time capsule’ below, it is evident that Antwerp holds something of a universal charm, a character that translates through the years and leaves the feeling of warmth, familiarity and welcome to all who pass through.

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“I haven’t counted the number of cobblestones that I love to tread in these narrow streets brightened by vegetation.
I have not counted the number of gables, which I love to see standing out like the Stations of the Cross against the pure sky or clouds.

I haven’t counted the number of ‘Antwerpse Handjes’ – those delicate and diving confectionary ambassadors – that I’ve brought my family and friends in Paris. (Everyone loves them, and I’ve become a Phillips’ Biscuits subscriber.)
I can’t count all the emotions that have welled up at the sight of the rich collections and installation of the Academy’s students (thank you, Linda), the summer examining board days, when the city is bubbling with excitement.
And all the ‘freeze-frames’ that have become rituals: Hailing the Virgin Mary in Saint Andrew’s Church. (I fell in love with her during the Geometry exhibition in September 1999, with her delicate face, blushing living cheeks, and sumptuous garments. Today she has obtained very special grace, decked out in Ann Demeulemeester’s ever-so-poetic feather breastplate.)

Saying “hello!” as well to the giant teddy bear in his futuristic, fun-filled space at Walter Van Beirendonck’s.
Hoping to run across Dirk Van Saene and his gentleness and his luminous, youthful aunt. Listening to the white pigeons that never finish telling stories of their lives (our lives?) in Ann Demeulemeester’s moving boutique.
Lunching at De Kleine Zavel and not forgetting how one sad day of dieting I received a giant plate of steamed vegetables in every imaginable shade of green. Ambrosia and a work of art. And a great kindness.

Closing my eyes to feel better the omnipresent wind that informs that Antwerp is a port town.
Mentally photographing the orthodox Jews’ headgear and side locks.
Admiring the strict, graphic, black-and-white uniforms of the chef and waiters at Paul Preud’Homme’s.
Still marvelling at how nice and helpful the staff of the ‘t Sandt are (I’m one of their regular patrons).
Dining at the Pottenbrug for its almost Parisian bistro-like atmosphere (minus the arrogance, however) and because you’re never disappointed by what’s on your plate.
And the diners have faces that inspire trust.

Coming across Geert Bruloot in his shop ‘Louis’ and congratulation him on his window and selection. Peeking into MUHKA (the modern art museum), where you’re sure to get a surprise.
Such as today, with the work of Berlinde de Bruyckere.
Discovering the ‘little island’, near Dries Van Noten’s and the Vandevorsts’.
Yes, indeed, Antwerp is a port. And the harbour basins are lucky enough to host swans to poeticise their waters.
Lunching in a monumental warehouse, which is tuned today to the Roland Garros tennis championship, featuring the pretty Flemish fighter Kim Clijsters. It’s such fun!
And then turning a corner in a red-brick street or walking into a restaurant and meeting an acquaintance who smiles, with a calm look, no stress, no hurry-worry.

When I leave the city, I tell myself that the station is so beautiful people should be forced to visit it, or at least take a good look at it.
Antwerp is both simple and delicately rich.
It is both exotic and homey.

That’s Antwerp.”

Beginning a new magazine with an ‘A’ inevitably prompted much word play, so when Dirk Van Saene, Walter Van Beirendonck, Gerdi Esch and their collaborators constructed NºA, there was much linguistic fun to be had.

With this in mind, the director of the Arnhem Fashion Institute, Angelique Westerhof, took the proposed A, B, C, D… concept for a real joyride, for her piece “Alphabet Soup”. Constructing five acrostic poems of the alphabet, Angelique chose names and concepts each pertaining to the spirit of Antwerp fashion – from Dirk’s world and the people and ideals within it.

Some you will know and recognise immediately (there is only one Martin, no?) but others are more cryptic and askew, such as the references to the Orthodox Jewish culture in Antwerp, with their Yarmulkas (skullcaps) and the Yom kippur (religious fasting holiday). Other words are rather ambiguous and vague, but help to paint a picture of the atmosphere of the fashion community, with their common inspirations and aspirations.

Rather than explaining all 130 of Angelique’s choices, we suggest a rather more organic and exciting challenge – to piece together the puzzle yourself.  With the help of a few queues from us, play with the cerebral links between the words, to allow yourself to arrive at your own vision of this intriguing word map. Push the boundaries of your knowledge to further explore the ‘A’ world.

Anarchist
Beyond
Craft
Dream
Experiment
Future
Genuine
Hidden
Innovative
Juxtapositions
Knowledge
Linda (Loppa)
Magazine
Nationality
Orthodox
Perseverance
Questioning
Radical
Sensuality
Tradition
Underground
Values
Walter (Van Beirendonck)
Xenophobia

Ann (Demeulemeester)
Bourgeois
Change
Dirk (Van Saene)
Emotive
Fashion
Generations
Homogenous
Incubation
Jurgi (Persoons)
Kickstarters
Labour
Majestic
New
Originality
Patrick (Scallon)
Quality
Research
Severe
Tuition
Uncover
Victorious
Wonderment
XI
Yom Kippur
Zone

Aloof
Boundless
Concrete
Desire
Escapism
Family
Gerdi (Esch)
Hierarchy
Integrity
Jointly
Kaleidoscopic
Liberation
Manufacture
Nico
Obscurity
Principles
Qualification
Raf (Simons)
Shy
Timeless
Unprecedented
Visionary
Wild
seXappeal
Yin
Zany

Alert
Bernhard (Willhelm)
Captivating
Diffusion
Ellen
Funloving
Global
Honorable
Inspire
Jubilation
Kindness
Luminous
Make
Natural
Outspoken
Provocative
Quietude
Romanticism
Statements
Torment
Uncompromising
Verve
Window
arickX
Yee (Marina)
Zen

Absolute
Belief
Chris
Dries (Van Noten)
Eclectic
Fever
Genius
Humour
Intuitive
Jobs
Kissable
Loving
Martin (Margiela)
Now
Personality
Quantity
Reward
Spell
Transform
Unique
Veronique (Branquinho)
Winner
X-Ray
Yearn
Zoom

Alix Browne is the Deputy Style Editor of the NYTimes.com. For Dirk Van Saene’s NºA she offered her outsider’s opinion on Antwerp – a medieval city that lives and breathes fashion for today.

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“Throw a rock in Antwerp and hit a fashion designer.

There is Walter walking down the street in his prison-orange sweatshirt and his arsenal of jewellery. There is Veronique driving to work in her Manta.

There are An and Filip and their dog as big as a horse.

Visiting Antwerp for the first time, it is hard not to feel like the Japanese journalist who was sadly disappointed not to find a towering skyscraper emblazoned with the words Walter Van Beirendonck Industries.

Yes, Antwerp’s reputation in the fashion world is that BIG. But Antwerp itself is modest. A city where everything is Just Around The Corner.
A city most guidebooks will tell you that you can ‘do’ in two days max. This is not too far off.
Young people living there are known to complain that is is a city where nothing ever happens.

Except the SHOW.

No further description is required.
There is only one SHOW.

And everyone knows what SHOW that is. Each year, in June, the SHOW is sold out to roaring capacity over a three-night engagement in a space that resembles, appropriately, a cathedral.

And it is here, in the presence of the city and this year’s international jury and the entire fashion department of the Antwerp Royal Academy, and yes, if He exists then perhaps in the presence of even Him, too, that you begin to understand that in Antwerp fashion is a kind of religion. A pilgrimage to Antwerp has a strange way of restoring one’s faith.

At times the entire city can seem to give itself over to the cause. Every gallery and exhibition space.
Every billboard and shop window.
There is fashion in the streets, there is fashion in the air, and one suspects there is fashion in the water.
And yet there is no apparent fashion scene.
Not in the sense that New York has a fashion scene or Paris has a fashion scene or Milan has a fashion scene.

Fashion in Antwerp is serious and a bit introverted and it can be a bit dark but it is not silly, superficial, or self-seving. Fashion in Antwerp is four white ticks on the back of a jacket.

Fashion in Antwerp is what Ann Demeulemeester likes to call an anonymous gift to an unknown person.
It’s the thought that counts.

Sometimes people in Antwerp can seem to take fashion so darn seriously you want to take take them by the neck and throttle them and say LIGHTEN UP!

Sometimes, like when you see a designer from Antwerp backstage after a show, tears streaming down her face, friends and family gathered round, tears streaming down their faces, you can’t help but want to be part of that experience. And in a small way you have been.

Antwerp designers don’t really make clothes.

Well, of course they make the things we recognize as clothes: jackets and pants and dresses and shirts and shoes and all of those things we put on our bodies.
But wearing these jackets and pants and dresses and shirts and shoes is like wearing a little tiny piece of the person who made them.

This is what people mean when they talk about fashion having a soul. And if this is the measure of fashion then perhaps Antwerp really is the biggest fashion capital in the world.

Throw a rock and you’ll see what I mean.”

Dirk Van Saene’s NºA is certainly one of the most “fashion-heavy” issues of A, having been created as one of the fashion statements of the 2001 LANDED-GELAND fashion festival in Antwerp, Belgium. Page after page opens to a new editorial or series that discusses clothing, its designers, and the nature of the industry – particularly that of Dirk’s hometown Antwerp.

It seems the artistic conceit of NºA (and hence its innate success) is the presentation of a very specific time period, place and group of people in a suitably diverse and unusual manner as to render it new and fresh. Although working with an intimate circle of contributors, Dirk managed to represent and celebrate an ideal of youthful, unconventional beauty and fashion without succumbing to any sort of “Antwerp tunnel vision”.

Uniting disparate elements with black and white print, Dirk was able to convey a multitude of concepts that question our perception of fashion – through warped social and historical contexts, and particularly viewing fashion from an artist’s perspective.

It is the latter ideal that exists behind Belgian artist Cris Brodahl‘s representation of the Paris collections for Fall Winter 2002, in which she utilised found objects to create 3-D collages. Photographed by Raymond Jacquemyns, we witness her rendering of Viktor & Rolf’s work as an hourglass wooden figure on intricately lathe-turned legs and arms with a round metal ‘head’, and Maison Martin Margiela as a white thatched leather face headpiece, with a mass of fringed “hair” trailing behind. The Margiela image is then repeated in the final page, with Cris herself wearing headpiece, the lighting inverted to offer a dark face in the shadows.

The symmetrical, geometric form of the Balenciaga figure (with angel wings for legs and triangular limbs) reflects the house’s futuristic and historical aesthetic, as does the decadent Yves Saint Laurent figure – suspended in mid-air as a blackened doll wearing a froth of white lace and grey satin.

While certainly a departure from Cris’s usual work, these pieces convey the same witty commentary on contemporary society and media imagery, through pastiche and a manipulation of our expectations through various layers of meaning.

Above: Balenciaga.

Above: Viktor & Rolf.

Above: Louis Vuitton by Marc Jacobs.

Above: Junya Watanabe.

Above: Yves Saint Laurent.

Above: Self-portrait by Cris Brodahl

Not only working as a fashion designer, Dirk Van Saene holds a long standing position as a teacher of design at the Royal Academy school in Antwerp. Nourishing exceptional talent in this intimate yet gruelling program of fashion education, Dirk has seen many unique creatives pass through his classes, and for NºA he chose to celebrate these in several stories – in this case the work of German designer Bernhard Willhelm, now famous for his outrageously tongue-in-cheek mens and womenswear, characterised by organic patterns, prints and intricately constructed silhouettes that play between the historical and futuristic.

Dirk asked French illustrator Emmanuelle Mafille to illustrate Bernhard’s collection – stripping the colour and fancy of his designs to reveal the pure silhouette details, aligning the simplicity of Dirk’s vision with Bernhard’s crazy world. Her spare line drawings mimic tribal etchings, and the use of negative space draws a sharp contrast to the reality of Bernhard’s richly hued fabrics.

“A Class 1981″. The year that put Belgian fashion well and truly on the global map, as the ‘Antwerp Six’ graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Six fashion designers who marked the beginning of a revolution, exposing their work to new markets, new scrutiny and new praise when they threw it all in a van and drove to London to exhibit in 1988. NºA’s Dirk Van Saene was one of them, as was the school’s current director Walter Van Beirendonck, with Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Bikkembergs & Marina Yee completing the gang.

The opening pages of NºA pay tribute to this legacy, as Desiree Heiss (one half of BLESS) teamed up with Austrian photographer Bettina Komenda to shoot a selection of pieces from the Antwerp Six (and their supplementary 7th member, Martin Margiela) from their Fall Winter 2001-02 collections – twenty years after their graduation.

Models Emily & Kristina both offer a sweet and unreserved demeanor, lending a fresh and casual air to Bettina’s black and white images, and lightening the mood of the heavily textural pieces and experimental, oversized silhouettes. Although their aesthetics may never be labelled as similar or comparable, this shoot seems to capture an accurate through-line across their body of work, revealing the progressive use of texture, bold graphics, androgynous forms, and subversion of conventional ideals of clothing.

Whether it is in Dirk Van Saene’s trompe l’oeil sweater with a knitted tie, Martin Margiela’s exaggerated, large leather waistcoat or in the military and graphical mash-up of Walter Van Beirendonck’s puffy patchwork top, Desiree has divined the true sense of fun, experimentation and an underlying rebellious spirit that carried each of these mavericks to their own independent success stories.

Above image: Ann Demeulemeester.

Above: Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene.

Above: Dirk Bikkembergs.

Above: Maison Martin Margiela.

Above: Ann Demeulemeester, Dirk Van Saene.

Above: Dirk Bikkembergs, Maison Martin Margiela.

Above: aestheticterrorists by Walter Van Beirendonck.

Above: Dries Van Noten.