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It is my good friend Lou Bellefaix, a fashion design student currently working at Maison Lemarié in Paris,that invited me to the Graduate Fashion Show of the Antwerp Royal Academy of Arts. She was without a doubt the best partner I could’ve gone with on this adventure as she is so well versed on all the elements an outsider to the fashion world (such as myself) might not see. It is for this exact reason I thought it’d be truly pertinent to interview her regarding her impression and personal insights of this major event.
The Fashion Department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp sits confidently at the forefront of the global fashion scene. Though founded in the 1960s as part of the Royal Academy’s broader arts initiative, the department earned international acclaim in the 1980s with the rise of a radical generation of Belgian designers. The now-iconic Antwerp Six; with Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkembergs, and Marina Yee, redefined fashion’s creative language with a detail-oriented, deconstructed, and fiercely interdisciplinary approach to design.
Today, Antwerp shares the global spotlight with London’s Central Saint Martins, New York’s Parsons School of Design, and Paris’s Institut Français de la Mode, cementing its place as a fashion capital despite it being a medium scale city. Since 2022, the department has been under the direction of Brandon Wen, following Walter Van Beirendonck’s influential tenure from 2007 to 2022. Each year, the department hosts a much-anticipated graduate show spotlighting work from across all cohorts, from first-year bachelor’s students to master’s candidates.
This year’s edition was no exception. It celebrated extraordinary emerging talent and delivered highlight moments that made it so much more than a traditional runway presentation. The show held two evenings, respectively on the 6th and 7th of June..
As Brandon Wen, the Creative Director of the Department says ; “Antwerp is a place that produces dynamic artists and designers, not businesspeople. Their power is creative thinking. I’ve said this a thousand times, but creativity applies not only to the art itself, but also to the system and structure around it. Find the people who share your vision and fantasy and make work with them. Create the space. Hold the space.”
@brandylaa
@antwerpfashionofficial
@antwerpfashionmasters
@royalacademyantwerp
MY POV : SOME STANDOUT COLLECTIONS
profiles and mock up diaries of the design process
photo credits to the antwerp royal academy of arts
photo credits to the antwerp royal academy of arts
One collection that truly stood out to me was by Annaelle Reudink, a 22-year-old Belgian master’s student at the Academy. Having graduated with honors from the bachelor’s program last year, she was selected to pursue the highly competitive master's track. Her vision is a blend of eclectic storytelling and technical precision, drawing from both canonical fashion history and whimsical references.
I was first intrigued by the name of her collection: Too many mes, not enough hangers, Professionally undecided (working title), Or who am I wearing? That curiosity quickly turned to fascination. Each look embodied a different persona, interweaving references that ranged from historical archetypes to fairytale figures, all articulated with strong visual identities. On many levels, her whole concept deeply resognated with me, weither it be for her embracing of undecisicivess, ethos diversity or general electicism.
The runway orchestration itself had the theatrical undertone of a Tim Burton universe, while fully embracing the codes of high fashion. The color palette, textures, and silhouettes were daring, yet executed with striking cohesion. Despite what could’ve easily tipped into maximalism, Reudink’s work maintained a sense of harmony and conceptual depth. Her ability to orchestrate such rich narratives without losing grip on structure or clarity was genuinely impressive.
@annaelle.reudink
Another standout collection was by Chloé Reners, a 27 year old belgian designer. With Dot, dot dot the designer offered a captivating meditation on femininity and form. Reners, whose work is also deeply rooted in material experimentation, presented a series of looks that blurred the boundaries between sculpture and garment. What immediately caught my attention was her bold play on silhouette and surface: think bulbous curves, tactile textures, and sculptural distortions giving a feeling of meticulously tailored shadowork.
Her collection seemed to speak directly to the ways women have been idealized and distorted through the lens of art and fashion history. Drawing inspiration from painted muses across centuries, Reners explored how the female form has often been elongated, twisted, romanticized, or flattened into idealized shapes. She responds to this visual legacy not with literal reinterpretation, but with a nuanced dialogue: her garments morph between two and three dimensions, simultaneously concealing and emphasizing bodily shapes.
There’s something profoundly poetic about the way her pieces inhabit space, they feel at once intimate and confrontational. With Dot, dot dot, Reners builds a bridge between classical representations of women and the fragmented visual culture we navigate today. It’s a tactile, thoughtful, and strikingly contemporary expression of feminine identity through the lens of clothing as both object and statement.
@chloereners
photo credits to the antwerp royal academy of arts
chloe reners’ runway collection
INTERVIEWING LOU BELLEFAIX : A DESIGNERS PERSPECTIVE
LB: I’m Lou Bellefaix, a 24-year-old French fashion designer currently based in the UK. I launched my eponymous brand in 2024; Lou Bellefaix, and while it’s still in its early stages ; more focused on one-off pieces, it’s become my full creative focus. I’m also pursuing a degree in fashion design and am currently working at Maison Lemarié in Paris, one of Chanel’s famed Métiers d’art houses. They specialize in textile embellishment, feathers, artificial flowers, and pleating. It’s a dream.
Could you explain how our paths ended up crossing?
LB: On a romantical journey. We met working at a tea salon while I was finishing a political science degree at Concordia. That job brought me to you, the brilliant mind behind La Dérive. Since then, we’ve bonded deeply; across cities like Barcelona and Paris, over art, culture, fashion, architecture… So when I heard you’d be in Europe this spring, I knew I had to introduce you to Antwerp and its unique fashion culture.
Tell me about the show itself. What makes the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp so unique?
LB: Honestly, I think it's the best fashion degree one can be enrolled in. What sets it apart is its deep commitment to deconstruction, detail, and radical individuality. The show demonstrated it so clearly. Spanning from first-years to master’s students, it lasted five hours but never felt too long. Everything from the pacing to the transitions was executed with such rhythm and intention.
The structure of the show followed each academic year. Could you walk us through the highlights?
LB: The first-year students opened with calico skirt creations, a material typically used for toile prototypes. By stripping away print and color, the show emphasized pure form, structure, and surrealist inspiration. You could see the bones of the garments: baleen, trompe-l'œil elements, suspended shapes. It was abstract but meticulous; Antwerp loves surrealism, and it showed.
LB: Then came the second and third years, which explored reinterpretations of historical costume. It began with what I’d call a “chest walk”; a dramatic, side-to-side runway movement that felt choreographed and theatrical. Models moved in sync to music that felt lifted from an old castle’s hall. Corsets, cloche silhouettes, Phrygian bonnets, and bloomers all made with noble fabrics like linen and silk. The students even included descriptive notes of the pieces in the show prospectus, like “Thinking of the mystical creatures of my past” or “Someday, staring into the grey paint, you’ll recognize yourself.” This added dimension was moving.
LB: What I love most about Antwerp is how uncompromising it is. There’s no concern about making “wearable” pieces. Clothes are art here. That’s something I really relate to since my brands’ vision is clothes are walking art, and I’m glad to see that same ethos in the Academy.
LB: I was also struck by the fact that the students were seeing way beyond function and utility. They thought in terms of space and presence: how a garment affects its environment, how it transforms a runway into a world. We visited the MOMU exhibition Fashion & Interiors beforehand, which really prepared us for this idea of fusion of chaos becoming order.
Speaking of that, you mentioned a quote that stuck with you...
LB: Yes, Raf Simons once said, “My way of working is […] from chaos to order.” That perfectly captures the designer’s journey in Antwerp: the relentless experimentation, identity-building, and creative chaos that eventually coalesces into a final collection. It’s raw, it’s rigorous, and it’s magic !
Before we wrap up, was there a particular student collection that stood out to you ?
LB: Definitely : Flora Perrot’s collection was a standout for me. Flora is a French student who started at the Academy four years ago, and last year she presented a delightful collection titled Grand bébé, known for its multicoloured and XXL “Teddy Bear Chapkas.” This year, her work transitioned from japanese influence to stronger indigenous particularities with White Rabbit, a collection inspired by Brazil and the folkloric tradition of Bumba Meu Boi.
LB: Thematically, Flora continues her exploration of animals and childhood, but this time she’s channeling it through a cultural lens that pays tribute to Brazil’s Indigenous communities. We could sense this through her use of furs, coloured leather cords, and silhouettes evoking animal bones. It reminded me of something out of Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke; mystical, tactile, and emotionally resonant.
Thank you, Lou Bellefaix for guiding us through such a rich, boundary-pushing experience. From surreal silhouettes to costume theatrics and wearable sculpture, Antwerp clearly remains a haven for radical creativity and it was a joy to explore it with you.
@loubellefaix
@bellefaix
@perrot_flora
by flora perrot
skirt creations
historical costumes
Attending the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts Fashion Show was far more than an observational experience, it was an immersion into a world where fashion pushes the limits of form, meaning, and emotion. From the deeply personal multiplicity of Annaelle Reudink’s master collection to the sculptural dialogues of femininity in Chloé Reners’ Dot, dot dot, and the folkloric poetics of Flora Perrot’s White Rabbit, the evening unfolded as a testament to the Academy’s radical, interdisciplinary spirit.
Through Lou Bellefaix’s sharp observations and insider knowledge, I was able to see the show not only with my eyes but through the gaze of a designer : one shaped by cross-cultural experiences, poetic thinking and a never-ending curiosity.
Overall, Antwerp isn’t just producing garments, it’s producing worlds, visions, and questions. It challenges what fashion can be when it refuses to play it safe. In that sense, this year's show wasn't simply a display of talent, it was a collective declaration of fashion as experimentation, cultural narrative, and uncompromising art. A space was created, and we were lucky enough to step into it.