Antwerp Academy showcases eccentric collections upon departure of Walter van Beirendonck

For Walter van Beirendonck's final graduation show as head of fashion at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp had a lot going for it. A hundred and fifty metres long, double catwalk had been laid across the floor of the Waagnatie, an industrial warehouse on the quay of the Meir. Almost twenty gigantic disco balls were suspended between the runways, speckling the concrete walls with light.

Almost half a century after he first stepped foot on the threshold, the colourful designer bade farewell to the Academy. He himself graduated in 1980, one year before Dirk van Saene, Dries van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Marina Yee and Dirk Bikkembergs. Under 'The Antwerp Six', this group turned the Belgian fashion world upside down and made their international breakthrough. In the meantime, Van Beirendonck became involved in the Academy again: from 1985, he worked there as a teacher, and in 2007, he became head of the fashion department. He taught there two days a week.

This year, he is retiring from the academy, but not as a designer. Because Van Beirendonck still designs with verve, his menswear collections, which are produced twice a year, are known for their pronounced shapes and graphic imagery with intense colours. The atmosphere is often between fairytale-like and monstrous and can be as alienating as a lucid dream. Creativity at its peak, making no concessions: these are aspects that Van Beirendonck also tried to instil in his students.

The end of an era

The end of an era was evident at last Friday's show when bachelor's and master's students presented their graduation collections. Van Beirendonck sat in the front row in a bright green overall, flanked by the other members of the jury. The jury judging the final-year students consisted of well-known fashion figures. Only Academy alumni were invited this year, including Demna Gvasalia, Rushemy Botter and Bernhard Wilhelm. They all graduated under Van Beirendonck and owed their successful careers in part to him.

Van Beirendonck himself was sandwiched between designer and life partner Dirk van Saene and designer Minju Kim. Looking, judging, as if it were a show like any other. But in a way, this one marked the end of an era.

The graduation collections of the master's students were highly conceptual, with an idea, image or storyline as the basis. Igor Dieryck, for example, developed a collection around the dynamics that play between hotel staff and guests. His creations feature uniform elements such as shirts and beige trousers, as well as status symbols such as logo jumpers and glittery fabrics. A flat, round handbag, attached to a glove, was carried across the catwalk like a tray. Jejung Park drew inspiration for his collection from the style of Andy Warhol, his photographic work, and photographic technology in a broader sense. Spiral shapes derived from camera shutters and digital prints were combined with silver and white wigs and sunglasses à la Warhol.

Taehyeok Gong’s collection featured Heavier silhouettes and themes. The young designer took Japanese cyberpunk from the 1980s and 1990s as his starting point, as well as the fear of nuclear escalation that was then prevalent. His work was darker, more threatening, and at the same time, more poetic.

This year, more than before, parallels with Van Beirendonck's work stood out among master's and bachelor's students. First, many collections were eccentric, with broad shoulders and protruding points, prints and degradé, ruffles, pleats, glitter stones and multi-coloured fake fur. The curious, dreamlike quality of Van Beirendonck's work could also be seen in the designs of Alise Dzirniece, who painted imaginative dinner scenes on glossy fabrics, and Amir Torres, who combined decadent elegance with unfinished frayed edges and motifs of ruined flowers.

On a more literal level, several students referred to the human skeleton in their collections, as Van Beirendonck has also done on several occasions in prints, and they extensively used facial decoration and masks. At Van Beirendonck, these have been a recurring factor for years.

Entire worlds

At the same time, these aspects cannot necessarily be traced back to Van Beirendonck's work as a designer. They are mainly the result of an educational vision aimed at uncompromising artistry, in which students did not learn to create clothes, but whole worlds. As head of fashion at the academy, Van Beirendonck was sometimes criticised for this uncompromising approach: the young designers were said to be well-developed artistically when they graduated, but not always able to find their feet in the commercial reality of the fashion industry.

The question is whether the Academy will choose to continue along the same path or go in a different direction. It is not yet known who will succeed Van Beirendonck. Whereas his predecessor, designer and educator Linda Loppa, was able to appoint her own replacement, Van Beirendonck “is in no way involved in the choice of my successor,” he said in an interview with Belgian lifestyle magazine Knack last week. "Yes, it is good that the procedure is more objective now", he said. But I do know the programme to the core. I know its strengths and weaknesses.

Yet he will have to let go. Meanwhile, he is 'used to the idea', he told Knack. "I am also looking forward to some more time for myself. It's been quite a long time and a lot, and the last few years have been intense." Van Beirendonck is referring to the height of the pandemic, when digital education was the norm. He is happy that he is able to end this last year with a physical show.

After his departure, he wants to focus more on his own label, according to the designer. "Things are going very well with that."

This article was originally published on FashionUnited.NL and has been translated and edited into English by Veerle Versteeg.