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| Sanan Gasanov |
The Fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts held its traditional year-end show on 2 and 3 June. The highly anticipated fashion show is the must-see event where fashion enthusiasts and industry professionals from Belgium and abroad can discover the latest fashion talents.
The Antwerp Fashion department is considered one of the most important and influential fashion schools in the world and known for being the breeding ground for fashion talent.
The famous ‘Antwerp Six’ (Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Marina Yee, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs and Ann Demeulemeester) and Martin Margiela graduated from institute at the beginning of the 1980s. The list continues with Haider Ackermann, Kris Van Assche, Raf Simons, Demna Gvasalia and so on.
The 4-hour show that took place at Park Spoor Noord is a spectacular explosion of creativity. The show starts with experimental creations in the first year. Followed by the magical ethnical and historical costumes and promising 2nd year students such as
Brendon Wen, Yelizaveta Volosovska and
Marie Martens. The show continues with the 3rd year bachelor collections from designers such as
Asha Swillens, Quinten Mestdagh and
Noa Kapchitz.
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| Asha Swillens |
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| Marta Twarowska |
The class of 2017 is the biggest group of Master students to date, 18 designers presented their master collections and undoubtedly some of them will make it in the industry. One to remember is
Rushemy Botter already got noticed at VFILES in New York last year after he went viral because of Young Thug who wore one of his looks.
Marta Twarowska's collection is inspired by her growing up in the post-communist Poland. The masks she designed for the styling made it onto this year's show campaign.
Ken Boonsong Thaodee designed a collection out of paper and cardboard, re-interpreting silhouettes of the 50's and 60's couture. With this colletion he questioned the value of a garment.
'The things we make in the class cost a lot of time, work and money, but at the end of the year, when everything is finished, everything you make just ends up hanging in a closet at home. Only for a very short period of time, we attach a certain meaning to those pieces. I wondered: what if clothing was less strong and durable, what if clothing was more fragile?'
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| Woojic Jo |
Iuliia Gulina presented 'My Angel Likes It Rough' collection with
striking masks looking like the models came out the Avatar movie. For
the prints she collaborated with the designer German Lavrovsky.
Woojic Jo presented a well-tailored menswear collection with a twist of humor. Being a fan of Mt Bean, the starting point for the collection 'Bean's tailoring' was the question he asked, 'What if Mr Bean were a tailor?'. One of the striking looks contains a giant turkey-shaped tweed mask accompanied with an English-cut suit.
Sander Bos proposal was a womenswear collection 'Dames' ('ladies' in Dutch), a word that is derived from 'domestication', the actuall overall theme for his collection. Starting from his personal experience in his family he dove into research of various artists focusing on topics 'God', 'Skin' and 'Surrounding'.
Nastasia Fine was inspired by dolls. 'For me they perfectly
represent the spirit of woman who have a body like a child but who can
also be very sexual'.
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| Sander Bos |
Sanan Gasanov dove into family archives, discovering his grandmother's embroideries made by hand seventy years ago. Although he has never met his grandma, she died before his birth, this project felt like a spirutual collaboration with her.
'I feel spiritually connected to my grandmother and I know her through stories my family told me. The title of this collection is a pun, 'GRAND_MA' stands for 'grand master' - because receiving my Master's degree from this school is a huge deal - and 'grandma' speaks for itself. I thought it was beautiful how it all came together.'
With words of Sanan I can only add that it is such a delight to see the work of all this passionate and hardworking designers who show stay true to their believes and personal life stories. Life itself is afterall the everlasting mystery driving us into sublime thoughts and dreams.
Below some more highlights from many talented designers who showed their work.
All images are by brankopopovicblog.
www.antwerp-fashion.be
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| Brandon Wen |
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| David Ring |
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Iuliia Gulina
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