It wasn’t a lot a fashion show because it was a festival – flanked by beer tents and food trucks selling loaded fries – with one thousand guests piling right into a disused warehouse on the Port of Antwerp. It was also a test of human endurance – a four-hour assault of warmth, strobe lighting, and everchanging soundtracks – as students from the Royal Academy of High-quality Arts debuted their vibration-raising graduate collections. That there ought to be a lot commotion for a school showcase is testament to Antwerp’s unique relationship with the humanities, and the unrivalled legacies of Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Martin Margiela, Raf Simons, Kris Van Assche, and Glenn Martens: all of whom were schooled on the Royal Academy before transforming the face of fashion. 

Walter Van Beirondonck – one other famed alumna – held the position of creative director and course leader for 15 years until Brandon Wen took over in September. As a recent graduate himself, Wen looks more like a student than a conventional professor of fashion, and once we meet in Antwerp’s gothic town hall, he’s wearing a home made corset with blonde extensions, metal hoops, and every kind of found objects knotted into the perimeter of his mullet. “I am unable to even begin to explain with words how emotional I’m,” he said on the evening of the showcase. “I like these people, I like their work.” Among the many tons of of scholars that presented – from Leo Emanueli’s Kardashian-Jenner printed columns to Amar Singh’s disturbed clowns – were 15 MA students who brought the spectacle to a rousing climax. There, exoskeletal bodybuilders, oil-slicked spectres, and tortured widows emerged from Belgium’s recent wave.

Below, we run through five of Antwerp’s hottest recent names – from Frederik Liederley and Marcel Sommer to Cezary Zalit, JuYoung Ahn, and Aaron Hüttenmeister. 

“I studied Manga in Korea and was considering working at Cosplay World for some time. But my plan was totally rerouted once I watched a Walter Van Beirendonck fashion show. It was then that I made a decision to check in Europe. My collection was in regards to the fantasy around male athletes, their garments, and their equipment. American football players, wrestlers, and a number of pieces of art by Alex Foxton, Maxwell Mustardo, and Robert Morris. I attempted to mix all of that to create recent aesthetics of masculinity.

It’s not fetishistic, though, and it doesn’t propose a particular sexuality, the characters I actually have created could have any sexual preferences. I’m cynical and are inclined to think the things I like aren’t special. But in my third 12 months, Beirendonck taught me to respect myself for what I like. That was probably the most worthwhile moment during my time in Antwerp. I’d really prefer to launch a label sooner or later but I still need real, industry experience, so I’m applying for internships in Paris, Milan, or Latest York.”

“My interest in fashion formed early but slowly. I grew up in a conservative country where ‘presenting well’ is an enormous idea, so I actually have at all times been told what I can and might’t wear – no black clothing, no too-wide or too-skinny pants, no intrusive patterns, and ignore accessorising. Those rules made me wanting to attempt to break the norm, after which in highschool, I realised I needed to direct my studies into an area that valued self-expression. 

The inspiration for my collection comes from the word ‘Sonder’, which describes the realisation that other people on the road have as vivid lives and real lives as you do. I focused on the split-second memory we keep in our minds after on a regular basis interactions, mixing colors and tones, stretching and flattening the silhouettes, and bringing the background into the foreground. The silhouettes come from perceiving the garment from one angle, having that be a ‘dump’ for all of the memory data where details are lost and collaged. The prints and textures come from on a regular basis things, like distressed t-shirt prints, carpets, curtains, paintings, small trinkets and charms. 

I’m afraid that my ideas are too abstract, originating from philosophical concepts that may not be comprehensible to an outdoor viewer. I studied fashion in Poland but in Antwerp, the teachers desired to listen and help bring out the very best ideas, helping me to feel validated. For now, I need to take a little bit of day off from desirous about starting a brand from scratch. I don’t need to rush ‘passion’ projects and would somewhat take some adequate time to research and get as many internships as possible.”

“My interest in fashion got here from an interest in my surroundings. I like how applied fashion is. There’s a set idea of what garments are and you’ll be able to play with that concept, twist and tweak and develop it further. My collection was initially inspired by perfume bottles – I just like the strictness and elegance of the proportions and materials and when applying that to the body it became an exercise in cut, making a system of 2D flatness based on the geometry of the bottles. I feel having purely object-based research allowed me to create pieces which might be non-referential, with their very own language.

That’s what my intention was, to find a language that stands for itself. Should you take the concept too literally you may get it mistaken. It’s about the great thing about the body in communication with clothing. Antwerp was difficult, which inspires extreme growth. I just like the deal with individuality and private expression on the academy, no experience will probably be the identical. You may have to shape your individual path and learn the right way to have conviction and stand behind your ideas. I need to maintain making and developing all features of designing and creating that I like. I need to continue to learn and difficult myself.”

“I first got into fashion when my grandmother taught me the right way to stitch once I was a child. From that time onwards, I began to make my very own garments once I wanted to decorate up because designer clothes were so out of reach. I used to be already fascinated by the complexity some designer pieces could heave, so I actually desired to challenge myself in my very own projects. I still have this drive to create items with a certain level of technique, I prefer to challenge spectators through process and construction. My MA collection was heavily inspired by Brutalism, which has at all times been fascinating for its feelings of power and intimidation. It might be this violence of silence that fills me with emotion. James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson, and Tadao Ando were the starting points for me. It’s not likely about telling a story, it’s more a private feeling that I sketch and take a look at to translate into the world.

I’m really going to miss Antwerp, I had the very best teachers I could have wished for. It’s such a present to check in a college with such a creative drive, surrounded by highly-talented students. The one thing I believed can be different was that the varsity can’t give you a well-equipped atelier with proper machines. So you actually need an apartment with space to work in and your individual equipment to achieve this! My next steps are undecided, I’ve got some requests which may very well be interesting but I need to reflect on these previous few months to actually understand where I need to go. I would love to see the insides of the industry and work for brands where the extent of expertise matches my expectations.” 

“I used to be briefly studying architecture but quickly drifted towards fashion. I’ve at all times had a love for fashion and dress, but I had never considered it a profession path until I reached out to Carol Christian Poell for an internship. I’d stumbled upon his work before and it completely modified my mind on what the lifetime of a dressmaker could appear to be – I used to be interested in the concept of not being a part of the entire fashion thing, while still with the ability to create clothes and other wearable objects. With my final collection, I attempted a somewhat literal ‘return to form’ so it was all about shape, cut, construction, silhouette, movement, and rhythm. There was an attempt at attaining purity, stripping something right down to its essence, and my mood board was almost entirely comprised of labor by sculptors like Brâncuși, Arp, and Minne, in addition to the architect Claude Parent. 

I initially also approached my work by draping the material directly on a model (with no sketch or preconceived idea) as if to work in a free, improvised type way. These seances and little rituals, of playing music really loud and sculpting with the material, led to the creation of most of my work. Just draping, sculpting, attempting to bring out shapes and volumes that may strike me on an instinctual level. The gathering was almost exclusively black and I feel people often attempt to box me in with the ‘darker’ and ‘edgier’ side of fashion, nevertheless it was intended to be blank and ‘colour-less’, omitting superfluous prints and color.

Since getting accepted here, I kind of conceded this may be an investment in my future, and have due to this fact focused almost entirely on the varsity work, often at the fee of social relations and hobbies, which principally have been non-existent. I typically work 15-hour days with none real weekends or holidays, so I’ve type of had my personal life on hold for the past 4 years. I’ve hardly made friends around and been somewhat hermetically sealed off, just doing my thing. I’d love to start out something of my very own but I would want some financial stability to ensure that that to make sense. So getting a job wherein I can save up some money over time can be ideal – preferably in an atelier where I could still work on draping, experimental patterns, and constructions. I think my tree is bountiful with loads of fruits to reap.”