SHOW 2013

Last Friday, I had the most marvelous break between 2 exams:

the graduation show of the Royal Academy of Antwerp, department fashion.

Thanks to Cleo, we had - once again - amazing seats, so I didn't take a single picture and just enjoyed myself the whole evening. ( all pictures come from Demorgen, Destandaard, Het Nieuwsblad, and the site of the Antwerp Academy)

This year, they made the whole show even bigger, because the school was celebrating it's 50th anniversary!

The stage was much better than other years, one could see so much more!

But the real excitement of the evening, that caused several ouh's and aaah's and a fainted girl, was definately the reunion of THE Antwerp Six.

Marina Yee

Dries Van Noten

Ann Demeulemeester

Walter Van Beirendonck

Dirk Bikkembergs

Dirk Van Saene

next to them, the other jury members were:

SUZY MENKES - fashion editor International Herald Tribune, London
BEN REARDON - editor GQ Style, London
B. AKERLUND - stylist/fashion activist, Stockholm
HIROFUMI KURINO - creative director United Arrows, Tokyo
TERRY & TRICIA JONES - founders i-D magazine, London
ANN-SOFIE JOHANSSON - chief designer H&M, Stockholm
LOÏC PRIGENT - film director, Paris
KAAT DEBO - director MoMu fashion museum, Antwerp
LAETITIA CRAHAY - jewelry/accessories director Chanel & artistic director Maison Michel, Paris

After the ever joyful and mind blowing creativity of the first year - it is a pity I couldn't find any pictures of these pieces - the second year came, and I felt somehow disappointed due to the wearable clothes that were presented... But without a doubt tons of respect for all of them, the collections were good!

The third year is definitely bursting of talents, I think we can expect a lot from next years graduates!

I picked two of them that I really really liked and wanted to show you:

First: Cameron Foden with his collection "To hollow a coin"

 The collection consists of really nice and simple pieces of clothing, that are beautifully cut and finished!

On top of that, there were oversized jackets, that created soft volumes, finished with some kind of antlers, that give the collection a sort of combative character to me.

Also the colours collaborated in this story: modest earth tones and blacks.

see more of his inspiration here: http://www.antwerp-fashion.be/show2013/cameron-foden.html

The second one I really enjoyed was Marketa Martiskova, with her collection "Keep in Balance"

She presented a quirky, funny, happy, colourful collection that bursted with energy, but still is very balanced at the same time. It was a show that really proved that fashion is fun!

see more of her inspiration here: http://www.antwerp-fashion.be/show2013/marketa-martiskova.html

And  finally, we had the Masters, the 2013 graduates!

There were fourteen this year, so quite a lot! 

The ones I really liked get their own post, later on.

Again, really thumbs up for every single student!

They did amazing jobs!

FOR YOUR INTEREST:

TONIGHT, THE WHOLE SHOW WILL BE LIVE ON AIR

AT http://www.antwerp-fashion.be/SHOW2012LIVE/

ENJOY!

wearing shirt by my mom, jacket by topshop, pants by Allsaints, vintage brogues and happy socks

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Yesterday I had the chance to attend the graduate show of the Fashion Department of the Royal Academy of Antwerp. I really had a blast, since it was my first night out in like 3 weeks or so, I'm disliking my finals really much, and I'm not even half way.

The 2nd and 3rd bachelors were often really amazing, together with the first years experimental designs (which I like most of all, because of the purity and freedom of mind, something most of the students seemed to have lost during the years...), while the master students were not really satisfying... It's not that they were bad or I didn't like them, it's just that I felt so little. For me, most important about a collection is the feeling I get, and at the graduates, I often didn't even feel anything...

Here are some pictures of our outfits, the atmosphere (that is always lovely on a night like this), a few collections, ...

Cleo took the pictures, enjoy them!

Then there was this odd sex-inspired collection that we didn't like at all, although I liked the morbidity of the mouth-jewellery. This collection wasn't very subtle and that made it pretty disappointing for me. One of the models was even wearing a bondage-suit, that I didn't find very 'new' or original as idea basically, but it also wasn't made beautiful or elegant or strong or whatever. A pity, because I think this designer is better than this collection seem to reflect..

Another very odd collection was the following one, and we've been discussing about this for a long time. Do we like it or not. At first sight we were even disappointed, because the volumes were rather dull, the paterns and colours were rather loud and clashing. But if you watched the collection as a whole, it suddenly became a pretty strong statement, with much content.

well, judge for yourself:

Next: one of my favourites, a collection inspired by Le Petit Prince. The models looked like futuristic princes that have landed on the moon, so you could see the link very well. This really was a collection with presence, it looked like a collection, with very different silhouettes, but with one strong atmosphere in it. The printed jumpsuit below was my favourite piece of the show, it looked so gorgeous, so modest and yet so strong!

I'll end with another favourite of mine: a 3rd bachelor collection in only two tones, with very simple, yet sophisticated silhouettes. The padded shoulders were close to perfection, and the use of typography made me go wild! maybe the strongest collection to me.. hard to decide...

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