Walter Van Beirendonck: Unmasked
An interview with one of fashion’s great avant-garde designers, Walter Van Beirendonck
Image credit: Walter Van Beirendonck, Costumes for Sous Apparence, Ballet de L’Opera Paris, 2012
It’s no overstatement to declare that fashion designer Walter Van Beirendonck placed Antwerp firmly on the fashion map. As part of Belgium’s most influential avant-garde fashion collective, the famous Antwerp Six, Van Beirendonck emerged from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 1980 and has since built a trailblazing fashion empire.
Consistently experimental, Van Beirendonck courageously tackled issues well before they were mainstream concerns, giving the sense that his oeuvre exists in an eternal present. He has, it seems, always had his eyes, and his hands, on the future. These days, Van Beirendonck is a fashion designer, curator and collaborator for artistic, commercial and advocacy projects, alongside a host of other projects including costume design for the theatre and ballet.
On a sunny Spring morning in May, I met with Walter in his studio in Antwerp – a crisp, organised and generously lit space near Mode Museum – where the designer’s collection history is carefully catalogued and archived as a national treasure. ....Subscribe to read this article in full
