THE FASHION DEPARTMENT

The Fashion Department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts was founded in 1963. In the early years, the academy mainly focused on fine arts but under the guidance of Mary Prijot and Marthe Van Leemput, it quickly grew into a full-fledged fashion education. Two important milestones have changed fashion history forever. First, the rise of the Antwerp Six, all alumni of the Antwerp Fashion Department. The Six — along with Martin Margiela — were a quirky group of designers: they made a name for themselves in the early 1980s with their contrarian views on fashion, averse to what the commercial fashion dictated and limited. Their international success and reputation was the culmination of the vision and the approach of the Fashion Department, which gained international fame and recognition. Second, from 1985, the Fashion Department entered a new era under the leadership of Linda Loppa. She put the emphasis on not only a greater individual expression of the students but also on international orientation, and especially on boundless conceptual creativity. Thanks to her, the conceptual and experimental education was emphasized. Since 2006, and until today, the Fashion Department of Antwerp continues to produce countless of talented conceptual designers under the guidance of Walter Van Beirendonck, one of the members of the Antwerp Six.

THE BODY | Without the body, there is no fashion. Fashion exists because of it. Through drawing, the students are finding a way for the body to relate to the surrounding reality. That is still the foundation of their education. Otherwise, the experimental idea is purely an artistic matter. The result must have a valid function within fashion but not necessarily a product value. This makes the education at the Antwerp Fashion Department different from other fashion schools that adhere to commercial designs. However, reality is always in the back of the education’s mind. The teachers are or were employed in any branch of the fashion industry. They want to share their experiences. Workshops and theme projects help prepare the students to different aspects of the business.

THE EXPERIMENT | Being able to think and work unlimitedly experimentally is the most treasured part of this education. Students get the opportunities to push their creative boundaries. Moreover, through an intensive personal guidance by the team of teachers, they are continuously driven to push their limits. That way they are be able to maximize their abilities, ideas and imaginations. The Antwerp Fashion Department will continue to focus on creativity because wanting and daring to think in an unrestrained manner is the most powerful tool for a world in constant change.

THE PLACE | Due to MoMu Antwerp Fashion Museum‘s current renovations -and highly anticipated 2020 reopening-, which touches the building at Nationalestraat 28 housing the Fashion Department, the department will find a temporary haven inside the historical Antwerp landmark Handelsmuseum at the Coquilhatstraat, as of June 2018. Handelsmuseum formerly lodged the Department of Translators and Interpreters and is noted for its monumental neo-baroque façade. Closely located to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Handelsmuseum is equipped to accommodate the students of the Fashion Department for two academic terms.

THE FREEDOM | The goal is not the extensive study of materials, nor the study of both traditional and innovative techniques. They are merely tools for the students, enabling them to think freely and experiment. Tradition, craftsmanship and innovation are key. Being able to create individually and freely is very important. The program offers the students all possibilities, but imposes nothing. Freedom of choice is the basis of innovative creativity. The evolution towards one’s own signature is based on freedom of choice, but also on content, on craft knowledge, and on the quality of the results. The indi vidual In the four-year program, the evolution of the students is closely followed by the teachers. It is a vertical guidance throughout the years. The development of each individual starts with uncovering their knowledge, their interests and their personality. This basis stimulates their inner environment. The process is incredibly intense, not only for the teachers but also the students, and therefore very productive. It enables students to develop a flexible and positive attitude, and a real passion for their work. The constant reflection on their abilities not only molds them into talented designers, but also develops strong personalities.

THE INDIVIDUAL | In the four-year program, the evolution of the students is closely followed by the teachers. It is a vertical guidance throughout the years. The development of each individual starts with uncovering their knowledge, their interests and their personality. This basis stimulates their inner environment. The process is incredibly intense, not only for the teachers but also the students, and therefore very productive. It enables students to develop a flexible and positive attitude, and a real passion for their work. The constant reflection on their abilities not only molds them into talented designers, but also develops strong personalities.

La Cambre is one of Belgium’s leading schools of art and design.

Founded in 1927 by the architect and designer Henry van de Velde, the Ecole nationale supérieure des arts visuels of La Cambre (ENSAV) has some 700 students spread across 17 departments: ceramics, animation, drawing, urban design, engraving and the printed image, painting, photography, sculpture, and an art restoration department. Its design departments include industrial and textile design, book and paper design (bookbinding), interior design, set design, fashion design, as well as two graphic sections – graphic and visual communication and typography. A new Master’s degree in accessories design completes the curriculum.

Students attend several cross-disciplinary courses, either optional or compulsory, including digital art, live model, colour, video, body arts and performance, book art and illustration. As well as art training, they are taught theory and technical skills, both general and specialised, and are encouraged to go on work experience by taking part in the Erasmus student exchange programme, as artists’ assistants, and at arts centres, creative studios or with companies.

TEXTILE DESIGN

Through its history and its ubiquitous presence in everyday life, textiles embrace symbolic and functional, cultural and decorative dimensions in uses which are both personal and collective. A flexible material, textiles are moveable, made of fibres and threads, wefts and stitching; they nurture complicity with the line, the text and digital processes. They are the bearers of countless expressions of ancestral know-how and a prospective terrain for research, the catalyst for a vast industrial sector. The search for textures and structures, rhythms, drawings and colourations is the very subject of the work of the textile designer, which they implement as a means of autonomous expression or towards established applications.

The studio’s programme enables students to understand the issues of textiles within a wide vista and through them to make coherent choices in accordance with their aspirations. The transversal nature of textiles leads students to imagine it deployed across art, fashion and design and invited into hitherto unseen terrains. The demanding character of interactivity with different fields of application takes the form of individual or collective working partnerships.

The students develop a personal language by fundamentally questioning the medium, as much in terms of its sensory, functional and cultural resonances as through its technical processes. This implies the acquisition of tools of analysis, creation and production through the varied professional backgrounds of the studio’s teachers, and thanks to the assistants who bring to creation the general courses and optional arts-course tutorials. The experimental processes develop through learning the techniques of weaving, stitching and printing. Successive interpretations of the work enable its multiple issues to become more apparent, its special features to be honed, and its status to be formulated. Working partnerships with external bodies or other studios within the school, training courses and enrolling the studio in international networks aim to stimulate the creative processes, to kindle exchanges and encounters, to refine the developments of the project. In addition to the general compulsory training course available to the different studios organized at La Cambre, the bachelor’s aims to provide the student with an understanding of the whole of the textile industry, of its multiple sources and issues. Over the course of the three years, the students develop experimental protocols and respond to given topics by questioning the different levels, statuses and applications of textiles. The demanding nature of a technical polyvalence permits an opening to various specializations.

The master’s entails an engagement on the part of the student in a domain of creation, based on an awareness of what they are undertaking and accomplishing in the professional, artistic and social world. The programme helps the student to choose a personal project, developed over two years and whose implementation transcends the scope of the school. The students have access, in optional form, to different courses and multidisciplinary studios at La Cambre or in other establishments, in such a way to adapt the programme to the demands of the subject chosen. Internships and residences in various contexts at an international level are encouraged during the master’s.

Pedagogical coordination:
Linda Topic, textile designer Anne Masson, textile designer

FASHION DESIGN

The Stylisme and Fashion Design studio offers training which hinges on the two primary axes of its title. Stylisme meets a precise demand in a given context. It immerses itself in brand strategy development from every angle: product, communication, distribution, extensive research. Cultural, social, aesthetic and technical skills combined with analysis abilities, the accuracy of perception and of communication are the assets of a fashion designer positioned at the centre of the company. The design of fashion(s), less influenced by economic logic, develops a more personal and innovative writing. The two disciplines, stylisme and fashion design, have in common the highlighting of the body through the use of volume, images, colours and materials: they study every facet of fashion as a contemporary form of expression.

http://www.lacambremodes.be

Through exercises and specific projects, the student is led to work on concrete statements and to develop, collection by collection, an ever-more personal style. Through their investigations they are ineluctably brought face to face with a language rich in signs, which they have to learn how to decrypt in the light of its sociocultural context. It is from this approach that they draw the elements which will permit them to develop a personal and innovative style. Apart from a sound knowledge of what is going on in the world of fashion, a good general grounding in terms of art, history, literature and cinema as well as a large openness of mind and a boundless curiosity will be indispensable for them. The studio’s curriculum highlights a number of fundamentals:

observation of the body and construction of volume ;
creative approach: personal research through the analysis of texts and images, and subsequently the development of themes, collection concepts, the composition of a range of colours and producing a personal dossier;
development of volume through the techniques of moulding, sewing and mesh work, as well as working on materials through various techniques, including screen printing;
construction of a coherent collection through the drawing of silhouette outlines, developing canvas, the choice of materials, producing prototypes in definitive form;
finishing the collection through accessorizing, fashion photography, casting and choosing the staging for the various modes of presentation (installation, catwalk parade, performances, video editing, etc.)
In the bachelor’s, alongside the core curriculum, the student is led to work on concrete statements, to build for themselves a technical vocabulary in terms of cut, couture, the handling and the finishing of textiles, drawing silhouette outlines, graphic design, etc. and to develop over successive projects an ever-more personal style. It is also during the bachelor’s that they acquire the concept of collection and that they complete two external internships in a fashion house or with a designer.

The master’s is the setting for the culmination of a long process of maturation and osmosis between creativity and acquired technical skills. The student must be able to assume full responsibility for their creative choices. They must also be capable of defending them through a coherent sales pitch and an end product which is perfectly in line with them. They complete two long-term internships in a renowned fashion house or with a designer abroad. Their final-year thesis concludes an educational curriculum of at least five years spent within the studio and constitutes a genuine business card to gain entry into the profession.

Pedagogical coordination :
Tony Delcampe, fashion designer