Brandon Wen, creative director of Antwerp's fashion academy: “I allow myself to be a little naive”
Brandon Wen succeeded the legendary Walter Van Beirendonck as the first non-Belgian and youngest head of department in the history of the Antwerp Fashion Academy. This year, the students he started with are graduating. FashionUnited speaks to him in Antwerp about his first cohort and the creation of his own debut collection.
Wen has no time for an interview when we join him at a cast-iron table in the sun in early June during the Antwerp Fashion Festival. The show for his first master's students at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) is tomorrow. He is surrounded by buyers who want to see his debut collection, which he is presenting as part of the festival. After all, he graduated from the Academy with flying colours himself in 2019.
“I believe in you”
He speaks about his graduating class with a mix of hope, anxiety and emotion. “I have only known the school with them in it. It will be strange not to see them here anymore.” Now, it is a waiting game to see what happens to them. “As a teacher, you have so many expectations of a student. It is not in a bad way, but more like: I believe in you, so I want the work to be good. It is not about what I want it to be. They have to figure out for themselves what they need for their careers right now. That is difficult when you are so attached to them.”
Predecessor Walter Van Beirendonck left a clear mark on the programme: conceptual freedom, extreme creative expression and character. What about Wen? “I have been told there is a clearer focus on material. I love textiles. I love manipulation. You do not explicitly change the courses, but such a preference seeps through when you ask questions: Have you done any manipulations yet? Show me something. This is beautiful, but try something new.”
Freaks
“I am not a micromanager. If you are good, you should just do it your way. We are all free at the academy. You can feel that from the teachers and the way they teach.” Wen is happy with the building blocks already in the programme. Year two is the toughest. You learn to make neat jackets, work in layers and build collections: the so-called collection arc. “If you do not master that, you cannot enter the profession.” In year three, the students are allowed to let loose. “That is where they all become freaks. And that is a good thing.”
Among the master's students are names to watch. Some are so incredibly talented—Wen will not reveal who—they are actually too good to be doing minor tasks in the back of a prestigious studio. “I love this generation. They work incredibly hard. Their characters are super intense, and therefore interesting. I am terrified of what will happen to them next. Will they get a nice job, a bit corporate, a bit crazy? For some, I think: nowhere is good enough for you. You hope they end up in a good place, somewhere their fire will not be extinguished.”
During the Antwerp fashion festival from June four to seven, Van Beirendonck spoke nostalgically about his time at the Academy in the show notes. It made him a different person. Wen experienced the same and wants his students to have the same memories. “Surrounding yourself with free, creative, hardworking people—that has always been the school's motto. And I am a product of it myself.”
On June five and six, 16 master's students graduated with a fashion collection from the Antwerp Academy (KASK). Lars Mertens, Stan Peeters, Tristan Stieners and Yvonne Schichtel received rave reviews. Their names were buzzing through the white halls of the academy on Saturday when the exhibition was open to family and press, with serious judging taking place in between. The doors would then close for a while.
Mertens' looks are characterised by an interplay of lines and bold material experiments—fulfilling Wen's heartfelt wish. He presents sculptural silhouettes embellished with wooden decorations, which immediately reveals his background in architecture. At KASK, he learned to be independent and to deliver a complete concept. He even designed a perfume with a designer bottle. He feels comfortable among so much talent. “There is strict filtering at the front door; that is how the Academy maintains its quality.”
Schichtel's work, with its lightness and layers of tulle and organza, refers to a soft form of femininity and 'goddess shapes'. KASK felt like a warm bubble. “It is such a luxury to selfishly focus only on your own work for four years. Now I am going back into the world.” She hopes for a position at Chanel and a work visa as soon as possible.
For Stieners, the work atmosphere will be most important. His layered collection, made of richly textured fabrics, is being compared to that of Dries van Noten—which is what he was hoping for. They were allowed to visit with the Academy. “The studio had a very familial atmosphere, which I would like, so you are not swallowed up by a huge team.”
All things equal
Antwerp had not seen a major fashion celebration since 2009. Wen seized the momentum by also showing his own work at the Antwerp Fashion Festival. His debut collection, 'All Things Equal', was presented with an art installation at the five-star hotel Botanic Sanctuary. It includes three couture pieces and a ready-to-wear line. “It has a philosophical slant,” says intern Guste Maroscikaite. She is there all day, helped with production and can explain the meaning behind it. “Brandon experimented with flatness—how far can you 'push' a square, two-dimensional piece of fabric before it becomes a garment.” Inspirations included the Japanese animation studio Ghibli and the art of ikebana flower arranging. Wen created variations on the hat: ikebanas.
The three couture pieces form the heart of the collection. “I dare not guess how many hours of work went into them,” says Maroscikaite, who did a significant part of it herself. She describes the most spectacular piece as cosmic shorts with a sculptural top in organza and raffia. The headpiece is inspired by a character from a video game from Wen's childhood. The third piece in the gallery, featuring white and blue flowers, a baby pink skirt and emerald green ruffles, made the biggest impression on the audience.
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The ready-to-wear line was available for pre-order at the festival. It featured mostly angular silhouettes that fit various body types, airy cotton tops and kimono-style jackets, as well as wide trousers with a sharp cut. For now, Wen is deliberately keeping it to a select group of buyers because he wants to keep the line between himself and the customer as short as possible. “First, I want to discover who the people are that like my clothes, who wants to wear and buy them.”
If it had not been for the festival, he probably would not have presented his debut so publicly. “I already did a private preview at my home and left it hanging for two weeks so people could come back. We chatted, they tried things on. I sold quite well that way. Now I know there is something to build on.” He has his doubts about the conventional sales path of 'the more, the better'. “It is so difficult as a young brand to be in many shops and pay for the entire production upfront. You do not know what will come back in sales. In that sense, it never really becomes a commercial success, even if you are on the racks everywhere.”
Paint splatters
On the wall of the installation, surrounding the clothes, hang large sheets of paper with paint splatters and strokes—intuitive, direct expressions from Wen. “I was in a creative block after I had already done a lot of the more ready-to-wear pieces. So I thought, let's physically change the environment so I can mentally enter a different space. I hung up large sheets, put pots of paint on the floor, and had Björk playing very loudly. I stood there screaming at the paintings. It only seemed fair to show everything here because it is all part of the process.”
A little naïve
His process goes in all directions. “I make grateful use of my ADHD. I work fine at two in the morning. I have easy sessions and then a very bad one; I do a lot of flower arranging, take a photo or paint, I sketch a lot.”
Wen makes headpieces and decorations with bent cane and raffia in cheerful colours, supplied by the vendor—he calls it “disco raffia” himself. He shaped them into sculptural forms in his own bathtub: you wet it, apply pressure to the material, and it dries that way. “The shapes follow the line movements in my (clothing) designs and those of my brushstrokes. Plus: I love the coarse, outdoor feel of raffia.”
These materials and the high-quality fabrics come from suppliers Wen has personally visited: parties from Belgium, who find his position at the Academy interesting, and Spain, part of his roots. He finds those connections important. “I love the story of Made in Belgium, Made in Spain; it is where I am now and where I come from. It just feels right. I understand why many designers move production elsewhere, but I allow myself to be a little naïve.”
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