Those drawn to Antwerp tend to look for a base that mirrors its cool nonchalance. In the heart of the Old Town, just off Groenplaats, Hotel Julien has long answered that need. Since opening in 2004, it has remained a constant for those returning to the Belgian city’s particular mix of history and forward-looking design.

Now, just over two decades on, the hotel reopens following a complete makeover led by founder Mouche Van Hool, alongside interior designer Bea Mombaers and architect Peter Ivens. The intention was never to redefine the place, but to bring it closer to its original idea, something more akin to staying with friends than checking into a hotel. ‘I started Hotel Julie with the idea of offering an intimate, welcoming place with a homely atmosphere. As if you’ve discovered a hidden gem,’ Van Hool tells Wallpaper*.

Tour the new chapter of Hotel Julien, Antwerp

Occupying two adjoining 16th-century townhouses, the property carries a natural sense of charm, pairing original features – fireplaces, beams and cornicing – with a more restrained, contemporary sensibility. Wool, stone and timber define the material palette, extending into custom pieces designed specifically for the hotel. In the lounge, painted wood panelling runs low along the walls before opening onto the courtyard through steel-framed doors.

The bar offers a more relaxed rhythm, where restored wood interiors lend a warm, familiar feel, while classic cocktails, vintage wines and locally brewed beers, including those from De Koninck, shape an extensive list. As the day shifts, the rooftop terrace becomes the natural draw, with open views towards the cathedral. Throughout, lighting by PS Lab is kept low and deliberate, softening the spaces and drawing attention to texture.

Meanwhile, the breakfast room brings in more light through wide glazing while staying within the same muted palette. For guests, mornings begin here with pastries from Dôme, alongside a selection of warm and cold dishes. Below ground, the spa occupies the building’s former cellar, its vaulted structure left intact. Access is by reservation, offering private use of the sauna, hammam and hot stone seat.

‘For us, creating the right atmosphere was essential. We wanted to strike a balance between a sense of coming home and a space that continues to inspire. I believe we’ve succeeded, and created something truly special,’ note Ivens and Mombaers.

Upstairs, the 21 rooms follow the same approach. Materials remain consistent – linen, marble, timber – while the architecture shifts subtly from room to room. The Dreamer and Experience categories sit beneath original beamed ceilings in the eaves, offering more secluded stays. For something more outward-facing, the Experience Terrace rooms introduce private outdoor space overlooking Antwerp’s Old Town. Interiors are layered with considered details: books on Belgian design and architecture, ceramics from Serax designed by Vincent Van Duysen, and Aesop products in the bathrooms.

Hotel Julien is located at Korte Nieuwstraat 24, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium

In Mous Lamrabat’s Moms see everything (2019/2021), the photographer pictures his mother wearing a pair of novelty glasses. The frames, which resemble hands with long slim fingers and bright red nails, cradle her face, underscoring a gaze that is directed gently away from the camera. Physically not much larger than a postcard, the portrait is situated up high on a wall in one FOMU’s four galleries, where new show ‘Families’ is open. Its towering perspective mirrors the work’s moniker: this matriarchal figure, seemingly, is keeping watch. She’s joined, at a slightly lower level, by Esther ‘Etty’ Beaton, photographed in black and white by her son Cecil, nearly 100 years earlier in 1927.

‘There's so much to say about family,’ offers curator Anne Ruygt, reflecting on the genesis of the Antwerp show in the photography museum’s sun-filled café. ‘It’s unavoidable. Always, but especially nowadays when there are so many societal discussions about the theme of family: about motherhood – and allowing for other experiences of motherhood – about abortion and gender equality, but also the nuclear family and its origins as a historical construct, and how people now are looking for other ways to live together.’

‘We wanted to talk about these other forms [of living together],’ she continues, ‘but also question the way we look at each other and how our society is structured, versus how we picture ourselves and our families.’ The show functions then as a kind of visual investigation of the many interpretations of family, examining how photographers, professional and amateur, have negotiated these relationships both in their work and in private albums, employing their viewpoint on what is fundamentally a universal topic. Chiefly, ‘Families’ asks us to consider who we call family and how we record our personal history, oftentimes centring the friends, caregivers and wider community that have reshaped tradition.

With Being There, Omar Victor Diop expands this concept of the familial even further. Working with Lee Shulman of The Anonymous Project, the Senegalese self-portrait artist inserts his image into a series of anonymous slides of white Americans from the 50s and 60s, a device that disrupts the homogeny of the pictures and asks the viewer to question the society that informed them. Mayara Ferrão’s Álbum de desesquecimento meanwhile, which opens the show, similarly explores absences in photography, and also navigates the racial bias of modern tech systems. Using AI, the Brazilian artist imagines intimate moments and tender celebrations amongst queer Black and Indigenous women in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Peter Hujar’s Orgasmic Man additionally, maybe anomalously, features, while elsewhere there are copies of Carmen Winant’s My Birth – the artist’s 2018 book depicting the physicality of labour and delivery – lying open in a vitrine, nearby to a series of anonymous baby photos. Early examples of studio photography (they were made in the 19^th and 20^th centuries), in the background of each baby photo is an arm – or sometimes half a body – belonging to a mother holding up an infant who’s not yet able to sit independently. Described by FOMU as ‘hidden mother portraits’, the pictures illustrate invisible labour and inspire subsequent questions about family dynamics. From the same era, post-mortem portraits speak to the way previous generations have commemorated their dead, while two further vitrines are filled with photobooks by Seiichi Furuya, each spread a memorial for the photographer’s late wife.

As Ruygt acknowledges, ‘Families’ is not exhaustive, its scope contained, partially at least, by the show’s design as a vehicle for the FOMU collection. Made up of some four million objects, since 2023 the museum has invited an artist each year to construct their own reimagining of the collection’s contents; for this latest edition, comprised of more than 200 photographs, Ruygt approached the Dutch author Niña Weijers (she previously contributed a foreword for Chantal Akerman’s My Mother Laughs, written while Akerman was caring for her dying mother in 2013). ‘The show really needed writing and a personal tone of voice,’ says the curator. ‘We have so many beautiful, mysterious images, we felt the need to invite someone with the right sensitivity, to really reflect on them.’

Weijers has written about ten works that appear in the show, using the texts to reflect on her parents’ divorce, her son's relationship with her friends’ kids, and her early understanding of her younger brother’s arrival. In relation to Ugo Woatzi’s The Age of Love, a new series about different forms of coexistence, she delves into the limitations of established family structures, and the potential for new forms of togetherness to be moulded by domestic fallouts. ‘The older I get, the more I consider my friends to be my self-chosen family, and an alternative to the nuclear family that I never found appealing,’ she writes. ‘Kinship is so much more than shared blood, and bearing this knowledge feels not just celebratory but revolutionary.’

The Age of Love, which Woatzi produced to be viewed in the museum’s Kaiserpanorama – a large circular wooden cabinet from 1905, designed for 25 people to sit around and view individual pictures – revisits the archetypal family portrait through the lens of chosen family, leaning into the tools of classic portraiture but with a firm root in contemporary aesthetics. A by-product of working with the structure, which wears a green velvet skirt and an impressive sense of magnitude, is the implied invitation to gather and be with other people; a fitting impulse for a group of photographs that leans celebratory, and ultimately riffs on the wider show’s core themes.

‘My goal was to tie in contemporary questions with historical phenomenon,’ notes Ruygt. ‘To bring those two worlds together. And I think Ugo did that beautifully.’

'Families’ at FOMU, Antwerp until 23 May 2027

In our new monthly series, we highlight the products, places and experiences we’ve bookmarked – and that you won’t want to miss.

April is high season for design, with Milan Design Week kicking off on the 19th. But if you’re not bound for Italy, there’s a whole world to explore as the days stretch longer, brighter and full of promise – especially with a four-day Easter weekend within reach. Read on for the season’s freshest fragrances to spritz, the architecture to watch for, and the art exhibitions to peruse – or the cemeteries, if that’s more your sort of thing.

The event: Milan Design Week 

Anna Solomon, digital writer

April means one thing at Wallpaper* HQ: the annual citywide showcase of Milan Design Week, and its centrepiece, Salone del Mobile. From 19-26 April, the Italian capital will transform into a vast, walkable design playground, as brands, studios and ateliers throw open their doors to unveil their collections.

Much of the team will be making the pilgrimage to take the temperature of the year ahead. I’ll be heading to Milan with Veuve Clicquot, which is launching ‘Chasing the Sun’ – a collection of design-led champagne accessories created in collaboration with British-Nigerian artist and designer Yinka Illori, which riffs on Veuve’s signature, joyful yellow.

Make sure to follow along via our live blog, where we’ll be sharing the week’s biggest stories as they unfold.

The exhibitions: Sylvia Sleigh and 'Eel Pie Hotel'

Hannah Silver, art, culture, watches & jewellery editor

In a packed month in the cultural calendar, I'm looking forward to going more in-depth. For the crop of upcoming smaller shows – including Daniel Malarkey's celebration of artist Sylvia Sleigh and Nick Goss' take on the former island in the Thames, Eel Pie Island Hotel, at Josh Lilley – I plan on taking a closer look at the works, talking to artists and curators and gleaning a sense of how an exhibition is brought to life.

The day trip: Green-Wood Cemetery, New York

Anna Fixsen, US editor

April is one of the busiest stints on the international design calendar (I will be heading to Milan Design Week with the rest of the Wallpaper* crew), but one can’t-miss spot to visit this spring offers a place to rest – forever, if you please. Green-Wood Cemetery, considered the Père Lachaise of Brooklyn because of famous ‘residents’ including Leonard Bernstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat, is opening a brand-new visitors centre this month.

The inauguration is a significant moment in Green-Wood’s long history as one of America’s first rural cemeteries and a landscape arboretum: while the site features a grand Gothic-style arch (populated by a famous flock of rogue monk parakeets), it lacked a central gathering place to orient visitors wishing to explore its 478 rolling acres. The new building, located just across the street, was designed by local firm Architecture Research Office and combines a historic greenhouse (originally used for mourners to purchase flowers) with a glossy new terra-cotta-clad building containing exhibition, research, office and event space. Talk about a near-death experience!

The artist: Gabriella Persia

Tianna Williams, staff writer

While the lighter evenings are more than enough to look forward to this month, I am also excited to see what young artist Gabriella Persia will work on. I stumbled across her work online and was captivated by her whimsical aura and style, which sit somewhere between Shakespeare’s 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' and 1920s Paris. Her work boasts an ethereal, painterly style, offering an array of hybrid forms that seamlessly blend together – creating a glimpse of a story already in medias res. In a world where everyone is beginning to look the same, Persia stands out.

The fragrance: Ffern 

Tianna Williams, staff writer

An additional spring favourite is the sustainable perfume brand Ffern. Each fragrance is released on a solstice or equinox – turning points in the year as the Earth orbits the Sun. With four releases annually, each scent is inspired by the seasons. This particular release captures the scent of ‘blossom at first light’, evoking the fresh smells of the English countryside. This month, I am looking forward to experiencing the Perfumer’s Candle, which features notes of wild mint and thyme. Aniseed adds a warming depth, resulting in a fresh scent that evokes dew-soaked earth.

The city break: Antwerp

Sofia de la Cruz, travel editor

I’m excited for a weekend away in Antwerp, the historic Belgian port city with an avant-garde point of view. I was there last year to review the exhibition ‘Girls. On Boredom, Rebellion and Being In-Between’ at MoMu, but this time I’m hoping to make it out to Axel Vervoordt Gallery on the outskirts of the city. I love returning to places – the second time, you know exactly what you want to indulge in and how to make the most of it. A great piece of advice I once received is to always leave something unseen when travelling, so you have a reason to come back.

The opening: V&A East Museum

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

The V&A East Museum is set to be this spring’s big architecture and cultural opening. The building, which we visited while it was under construction a couple of years ago, was designed by O’Donnell + Tuomey and cuts a distinctive figure across the East Bank – no mean feat given its impressive neighbours, including a 2025 Stirling Prize nominee, the London College of Fashion by Allies and Morrison. Jayden Ali, with A Practice for Everyday Life and Larry Achiampong, have contributed to the new destination’s Why We Make galleries and connecting spaces inside – I can’t wait to take a peek. The V&A East Museum will officially open on 18 April 2026 at East Bank in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

‘It was not like a pop group coming together and singing the same song. All six of them had different solo careers in mind,’ notes Geert Bruloot, one of three curators working on a new exhibition, opening at MoMu in Antwerp at the end of March, which will celebrate 40 years of the sextet of Belgian designers known as the Antwerp Six.

Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene and Marina Yee all trained. at the fashion department of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in the early 1980s. Their differing approaches, aesthetics and career paths, as well their unique legacy as a group contextualised within a broader fashion history framework, makes for a fascinating, complicated and ultimately visually arresting tale.

The Antwerp Six at MoMu Antwerp

It’s a narrative that MoMu’s director Kaat Debo (and fellow curator alongside Romy Cockx) had wanted to unravel at the museum for some time; the Six and Martin Margiela, who graduated from the Royal Academy around the same time, put Belgian fashion on the international map. Debo says she is particularly grateful that all six designers gave the exhibition proposal their blessing while agreeing to in-depth interviews and offering access to their individual archives. Visitors can expect to see around 80 silhouettes in the show, alongside personal objects, sketches, ephemera and video; each designer has been involved in the way their own work will be presented. It is a major milestone: in the four decades since the group was given the Antwerp Six moniker, this is the first major survey of their work collectively

‘As the designers often say, the Antwerp Six is both a blessing and a curse,’ notes Debo. ‘They realise how influential the name and concept is, but it can be frustrating because, for 40 years, in every interview, there is always at least one question about the Antwerp Six – and it was never a brand. They never collaborated or made collections or campaigns together.’

Bruloot, who, with partner Eddy Michiels, opened Antwerp’s avant-garde shoe boutique Coccodrillo (the first to sell Margiela’s ‘Tabi’ split-toe boot) in 1983, as well as Louis, a store dedicated to Belgian fashion, in 1986, says the myth of the Six is particularly extraordinary given that after they left the Royal Academy, they were technically only the Six for around three years before establishing their own distinct careers.

The story begins with a journey that the designers took in a rented van to London to show their work at the 1986 British Designer Show at Olympia (only Demeulemeester did not travel; she was pregnant at the time). Instigated by Bruloot, it is now considered legendary: with their somewhat complicated- sounding names and then-radical designs, the group made flyers – Bruloot is convinced this was Yee’s idea – that read ‘Come See The Six Belgian Designers’ to encourage attention. It worked. Orders from Barney’s New York – the store every designer wanted to sell to at the time – were placed, and their group identity cemented, even if the details of who christened them the Antwerp Six remain sketchy.

One of the first exercises in bringing this exhibition to life was to assemble the designers together – a relatively rare occurrence – to explore their personal recollections and histories, none of which neatly aligned. ‘It had been quite a long time since they had all seen each other, but you could see the six students sitting at the table, teasing each other and sharing memories,’ says Debo. It seems particularly poignant given that, in November last year, Yee lost her battle with cancer.

Her enthusiasm for the exhibition remained undimmed, says Bruloot. ‘I had been working on it with her these past few years, even until a few days before she died. She was an extraordinary person, a very creative person. She could make fashion out of anything.’ An early adopter of upcycling and with a strong personal style, which is often considered to have inspired early Margiela collections, Yee’s career output ranged from theatre costume design to painting and collage alongside her sustainable ready-to-wear label, MY Collection, launched in 2021.

Despite their varying design vocabularies and career twists and turns – whether it was Bikkembergs’ canny coupling of fashion and sportswear, Van Saene’s experiments with art and sculpture, Demeulemeester’s darkly poetic aesthetic, Van Noten’s unique understanding of print and colour, or Van Beirendonck’s disruptively playful and political runway collections – the group’s legacy of individualism is in stark contrast to the current culture of high fashion as mainstream entertainment. Regardless of whether they still own their namesake brands, Bruloot says ‘they didn’t want to be part of the fashion jet set. Or to be linked to a big house. They wanted to remain free.’

The exhibition will consider how much fashion has changed over the past 40 years, as well as offering insights into the various factors that set the stage for the Six to flourish. The early 1980s were a particularly inspiring period in fashion internationally, including the rise of avant-garde Japanese design, such as Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons – Bruloot distinctly recalls members of the group driving to Paris to visit the brand’s early stores – alongside a thriving fashion scene in London, led by the likes of Vivienne Westwood and BodyMap.

Meanwhile, a growing community in Antwerp, centred around the likes of underground disco Cinderella’s Ballroom, stores including Van Saene’s Beauties & Heroes, and art galleries such as Wide White Space, reflected a shifting mindset among young creatives. Running in tandem were a series of government initiatives, including television campaigns, such as ‘Fashion, this is Belgium’; the Golden Spindle contest for emerging designers, judged by the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier; and funding that allowed members of the Six to visit Tokyo. ‘I think it was there they learned that fashion is more than making clothes,’ says Debo. ‘They learned that you have to create a world. And you have to present your world. If there’s one thing that binds all six of them, it’s that they have such strong signatures, which originated from gut feeling, not commercial strategies.’

Debo hopes the exhibition will be a catalyst to think about how to nurture new talent and consider what fashion is now. ‘Is it sort of marketing? Do we sell a name, a logo? What is the value of it?’ she says. ‘The Six did their own thing alongside these huge fashion groups of the 1990s. They showed how creative people can lift the reputation of an entire city and present it as a place for experimentation, innovation and connection. They are respected as artists, as creatives, but also as people who did it their own way.’

‘The Antwerp Six’ is on show from 28 March 2026- 17 January 2027 at MoMu, Antwerp, momu.be

A version of this story appears in the March 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + now. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

All change! It could serve as a mantra for the world right now, but, for the March 2026 Style Issue, we use it to describe the season’s unprecedented reordering of fashion’s high command. The S/S 2026 collections saw debuts by no fewer than 15 creative directors, giving our fashion team cause to focus on the idea of the ‘clean slate’. To this end, we profile two designers on their bold new starts: Glenn Martens, who takes over at Maison Margiela, one of fashion’s most influential houses; and Duran Lantink, whose boundary-pushing debut show for Jean Paul Gaultier in Paris had everybody talking.

Fresh chapters abound in other corners. We take a trip to Seoul to check out Wooyoungmi’s monolithic new flagship store as the Korean label enters a new phase; head to the Swiss Alps, where Hauser & Wirth’s hospitality arm Artfarm is breathing new life into a 16th-century guest house; and meet Ilaria Icardi, Prada’s womenswear design director, who recently launched an eponymous jewellery line.

For our regular digest of the season’s trends, The Glossary, we question what, in our current culture of short attention spans, does ‘newness’ look like? And ahead of a new show launching at MoMu Antwerp, we explore the legacy of the Antwerp Six, a group of radical Belgian designers who changed the global fashion landscape in the 1980s and 1990s.

Elsewhere, we explore the ‘unnatural natural’ new face arising from our Botox and filler fatigue, and highlight the fresh slant on men’s tailoring and womenswear that designers have been taking this season.

Finally, our resident design critic Hugo Macdonald administers a timely blast of fresh thinking to the tired old task of spring cleaning: a balm, he suggests, for both body and soul.

Bill Prince
Editor-in-Chief

The March 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper* is available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 5 February 2025. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

A fashion homage

Nick Vinson, contributing editor

On Sunday, I flew to Milan to attend the 50th Anniversary of Giorgio Armani – a black-tie event held at the Pinacoteca di Brera. The evening featured the late designer’s final collection for spring/summer 2026, shown in the cloisters, as well as the opening of the exhibition Giorgio Armani. Milano, per amore, which showcased 133 historical looks representing his five-decade career, displayed among the artworks in the upstairs galleries. The night concluded with a chic dînatoire.

Some of Armani’s favorite models, including Gina Di Bernardo – who walked his shows in the 80s and 90s and was a face of his iconic ad campaigns shot by Aldo Fallai – returned to the runway, accompanied by a live performance from pianist Ludovico Einaudi. Mr. Armani passed away on 4 September – naturally, the details of this event were planned months in advance, and every aspect was personally approved by him (as was his way). His design team followed his wishes to the letter.

I enjoyed rubbing pagoda shoulders with Cate Blanchett, dressed in Armani Privé, as well as Glenn Close – but the real treat was seeing Richard Gere and Lauren Hutton (dressed in a white silk smoking jacket) sitting side by side in the front row. Earlier that same week, I had rewatched American Gigolo, made in 1980 when the Giorgio Armani brand was just five years old – a notable beginning to the designer's long relationship with Hollywood. Richard Gere’s now 45-year-old outfits, supplied by the then-young designer, still look perfect today. In the film, Gere wears several versions of a two-pocket shirt – I’d kill to wear them now. That is the essence of Giorgio Armani’s timeless and enduring style.

A Stirling Prize preview

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

In the architecture world, October means Stirling Prize, and the announcement of the award for the UK's best building of the year is fast approaching. In anticipation, and to explore projects and themes, I was invited by the RIBA to chair a panel discussion among the six practices on the 2025 RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist at the Barbican this week. It was such a privilege to take on the task, hear more about all the projects and chat about what they mean for their clients, wider communities and the architecture world beyond. Big thanks to all involved. Can't wait for the 16th October, when the top gong is revealed.

A flavour journey

Tianna Williams, staff writer

abc kitchens was Monday night’s dinner spot, nestled on the ground floor of The Emory on Old Barrack Yard. Weaving through polished corridors, the restaurant opens up with high ceilings and tarnished wood, inspired by naval architecture and concealed from the outside world behind a glistening glass façade. Designed by Rémi Tessier and featuring artworks by Damien Hirst, the restaurant boasts modernity and elevated sophistication. The kitchen is helmed by chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and the menu offers an assortment of dishes inspired by Mexico, Asia, and Europe.

The evening began with a cucumber martini, swiftly followed by an array of table snacks, from sweet pea guacamole to green chickpea hummus. For starters, I would recommend a selection of fresh salads, such as the crispy cabbage and kale Caesar salad. I find decent Mexican food hard to come by in London, but the BBQ pork tacos – garnished with pickled pineapple and Fresno chili relish – had a fun Californian spin. To finish, the light and zesty coconut panna cotta with tropical fruit was divine.

A city sojourn

Sofia de la Cruz, travel editor

Last week, I spent an eventful 24 hours in Antwerp, a sojourn I’ll remember for a long time. I was invited by the city’s fashion museum, MoMu, to see its new exhibition ‘Girls. On Boredom, Rebellion and Being In-Between’, a multidisciplinary exploration of girlhood’s cultural significance through works by artists such as Sofia Coppola, Louise Bourgeois, and Alice Neel. Afterwards, I tried to squeeze in as much as possible, visiting photography institution FOMU, eating a ‘croque vegan’ at the steel-clad cafe Tinsel, and browsing the multilayered Ann Demeulemeester store. A chiaroscuro piece from the Belgian designer’s beautiful Serax collection has now joined my ever-growing mug collection.

A design deep-dive

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

I spent the better part of this week in València, where the balmy 25-degree weather was a welcome last hurrah for summer. Or, it would have been, had I not been sequestered in a gigantic expo hall on the city’s outskirts for the duration of my stay. The occasion was Feria Hábitat València – Spain’s leading fair for furniture, lighting, home textiles and interiors. I was there to take the pulse of contemporary Spanish design.

My biggest takeaway was that furniture design seems moving beyond just visual appeal, emphasising instead clever, customisable features (invisible to the naked eye, of course). Invisible tabs reclined seats; connections between infinite modular configurations were hidden; and new materials allowed furniture to move between indoor and outdoor use. The old trade-off between style and function? A thing of the past.

A cultural exploration

Jamilah Rose-Roberts, social media editor

Earlier this week, a friend of mine received tickets to the ICA for the launch of Liz Johnson Artur's new book, I Will Keep You in Good Company. The book gathers pages from more than twenty of Johnson Artur's handmade workbooks, begun in the early 1990s – part diary, part experimental playground. Through layering, annotating, and collaging, they chart the evolution of her photographic language and her way of processing both images and life.

The evening began with screenings of three short films: Real Times (2018), Black Balloon Archive (2016), and Afro Russia (2019). Each expanded on themes running through her work, from Black British history and resistance to the complexities of others’ mixed African/Black and Russian heritage. Watching them together was a reminder of how Johnson Artur's practice navigates identity, community, and the politics of belonging with a rare tenderness and clarity.

Following this, there was a conversation with designer Martine Rose and Johnson Artur, drawing out the intersections between art, fashion, and cultural memory, before the night closed with a book signing. While the films are not currently available to view, I Will Keep You in Good Company can be found online or at the ICA.

Art in Athens

Gabriel Annouka, senior designer

Whilst in Athens, I visited Sylvia Kouvali, a gallery housed in a converted industrial space in Piraeus, which I had first encountered at Condo London back in January. Inside, Haris Epaminonda's retrospective, VOL. XXXIII, plays with space with both mischief and precision. Built walls hide objects, images flirt with each other in stacks, and a video plays in an enclosed space you can only spy through a small porthole. The rooms are intimate, slightly unruly, and composed of fragments of memory, books, and history. Nothing is ever complete; everything feels deliciously on edge.

A revived legacy

Bill Prince, editor-in-chief

On Friday, I popped in to see La France de Bernard Buffet at Opera Gallery in Mayfair. Co-curated by my friend and colleague Nick Foulkes, it demonstrates one of the reappearing acts of the last few years: the rehabilitation of a French post-war figurative artist at one stage thought lost to the vagaries of fashion.

We are all intrigued by the way our culture overwrites itself at regular intervals, from silent movie stars to the polymath artists of the music hall era, we find ourselves drawn more to the forgotten than to the ritually trumpeted. Buffet was once one such casualty. Now, thanks to the work of Nick and co-curator Giulia Lecchini, deputy director at Opera Gallery London, no longer.

A talent showcase

Charlotte Gunn, director of digital content

Last night I attended Abbey Road's annual Music Photography Awards, held in the renowned Studio One and Two. A couple of legends in the field – David Bailey and Anton Corbijn – received the Lifetime Achievement and ICON awards, respectively. But it was exciting to see the wealth of emerging talent on show. We loved Melissa Gardner's winning photo of Lava La Rue.

A joyous launch

Anna Fixsen, US editor

Fun fact: my middle name is Joy. So when Marc Jacobs launched his JOY artist capsule collection, in which the designer tapped creatives David Shrigley, Derrick Adams and Hattie Stewart to design a series of happy bags and accessories, I was all aboard. Last night, the brand had plenty to celebrate, including the launch of the JOY Soda Shop at The Standard, Highline and the premiere of Fairyland, a new coming-of-age film set amid the AIDS crisis directed by Andrew Durham and produced by Sofia Coppola. Beneath festive umbrellas and cheeky decor by Adams, Stewart and Shrigley (I was partial to his ‘Joy is Bananas’ coasters), guests – including Coppola and her daughter, Romy Mars – sipped daiquiris, noshed on fries and caught up with fellow creatives. Because if there’s anything we need in this moment of uncertainty, it’s an excuse for a good time.

Through the lens of American filmmaker Sofia Coppola, girlhood appears dreamlike yet tinged with melancholy; her intricate coming-of-age stories are softened by honey-lit portrayals of enigmatic characters. By contrast, French-American artist Louise Bourgeois channels something far more cathartic: her work is a dark allegory of gendered oppression, shaped by the searing memories of an alienating childhood. Japanese photographer Fumiko Imano, meanwhile, strikes a more playful register with self-portraits alongside her imagined twin: a tender, gregarious meditation on youth refracted through cultural dissonance.

The truth is, girlhood resists definition. It is at once singular and collective. Glimpses of it surface in art and in memory. It informs who we are, but more often than not, we want to rebel against it. It is complex, but it’s also beautiful.

In ‘Girls. On Boredom, Rebellion and Being In-Between’, showing until 1 February 2026 at MoMu, Antwerp’s fashion museum, girlhood is framed less as an answer than as an open question. Curator Elisa De Wyngaert describes it as ‘delicate, subversive, volatile and unresolved’. She admits to a flicker of anxiety about how audiences might respond, whether the binary boundaries of the word will be challenged. ‘I keep reminding myself that girls deserve this space,’ she says.

The exhibition poses questions rather than offering conclusions: ‘When do you stop being a girl? Is it a choice you make, or made for you? Is girlhood just a phase, or something more lasting: a mindset, a feeling, an aura you carry? Which memories, emotions, or impulses stay with you, shaping who you become?’

‘Girls. On Boredom, Rebellion and Being In-Between’ at MoMu

Themes such as ‘the lingering years of girlhood’, ‘boredom’, and ‘coming of age’ are traced through the exhibition's constellation of works across art, fashion, film, and photography. It is a relevant and timely field study, especially since, in the last five years, social media has repackaged girlhood into a stream of micro-trends and endless vocabulary: girl dinner, girl walks, girl maths. It feels apt, then, that the exhibition opens with Maya Man’s Love/hate (2022): a punching bag cradling a phone that scrolls endlessly through gendered performance in the theatre of internet culture. From this starting point, the show unravels the sartorial, iconographic, cultural and psychological associations tethered to the figure of the girl.

For much of art history, the female subject was cast as a passive subject. Only in the late 20th century did its portrayals begin to carry emotional and psychological depth, paralleling the emergence of distinctly gendered children’s fashion.

Japanese-Mongolian painter Arisa Yoshioka frames growing up as an ongoing negotiation of belonging, while Nathanaëlle Herbelin’s Charlotte (2023) captures her neighbour’s fragile courage in choosing whether to present as a boy or a girl. American artist Alice Neel’s Memories (1981) offers a piercing portrait of her only surviving daughter: an image that confronts the turbulence of balancing young motherhood with the demands of an artistic career. Meanwhile, Italian fashion stylist and visual artist Sofia Lai’s morphing sculptures embody the bodily anxieties of growing up.

The theme of sleep is central here. Bedrooms, after all, often mirror the intensity and fragility of adolescence. Within the exhibition, three rooms are reimagined as installations, each evoking a different form of yearning, whether for shelter or escape.

The first references Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (1999): Lux Lisbon’s clothes are scattered across the bed, a stark contrast between the shapeless, conservative feedsack dresses enforced under parental watch and the clandestine outfits meant for nights out.

Taiwanese designer Jen-Fan Shueh, of Jenny Fax, reconstructs her own teenage bedroom: an austere space defined less by her desires than by her mother’s vision, notable in its absence of clutter. The final room, created by Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena of Chopova Lowena, draws on their Bulgarian-American and British heritage.

Guest curator Claire Marie Healey brings a cinematic lens to the exhibition, selecting films that lend the theme a vivid, visual dimension. Works such as Marie Antoinette (2006), Girlhood (2014), and Bonjour Tristesse (2024) challenge cinema’s patriarchal gaze, portraying restless, resilient characters who resist containment. This leads into ‘Picturing girls’, a section that spotlights three photographic narratives shifting between documentary, portraiture, and autobiography.

Rituals of girlhood emerge as recurring motifs. In Girls Shopping (2001), British-American photographer Nancy Honey captures the simple joy of an adolescent outing: ‘They didn’t buy much that day – they tried on endless pairs of shoes and clothes and ate sweets. That was the joy of it,’ she recalls. By contrast, Leticia Valverdes’ Brazilian Street Girls (2000) reflects her lifelong commitment to documenting those on the margins of society, while Eimear Lynch’s Girls’ Nights (2023) traces the charged anticipation of Irish teens preparing for discos.

Archival works also resonate. Jim Britt’s Sisters (1970s) and Nigel Shafran’s Teenage Precinct Shoppers (1990) occupy a special place, alongside zines (notably Bikini Kill, Riot Grrrl, and Femzine) that summon memories of collaging teenage icons, riot slogans, and anti-commercial mantras. A curated library of texts extends the dialogue; literary volumes by Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir, and Bernardine Evaristo offer new ways of mapping girlhood’s elastic borders.

Increasingly, in the realm of fashion, female designers have reclaimed archetypes and paraphernalia linked to the hyper-girly figure, which were once dismissed as infantilising: white socks, hair slides, glitter, nail art, hoodies. Case studies include how Simone Rocha reframes communion as a ritual of dress, Veronique Branquinho reimagines the prom queen and the schoolgirl, and Molly Goddard draws on the silhouettes, textures, and playfulness of childhood clothing. Earlier examples include Miuccia Prada’s ambiguous renderings of girlhood through both Prada and Miu Miu, and Maison Martin Margiela’s 1992 Artisanal collection, which deconstructed 1950s debutante gowns. ‘Perhaps it’s a way for designers to go back to their own adolescence,’ De Wyngaert suggests.

‘Girls’ concludes with a museum-produced film: a focus group of women across generations, each offering an intimate reflection on girlhood. Leaving the exhibition, it’s hard not to recall that scene in The Virgin Suicides, when the doctor tells young Cecilia, ‘You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets,’ and she quips back, ‘Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.’ At MoMu, ‘Girls’ is brilliant at capturing – or reminding us of – exactly that.

‘Girls. On Boredom, Rebellion and Being In-Between will be on display at MoMu until 1 February 2026. For more information, visit momu.be

In her 2023 essay ‘El tiempo de la promesa’ (‘The Time of the Promise’), Catalan philosopher Marina Garcés considers how contemporary society has become largely fearful of the commitment involved in promise-making. ‘Promises,’ as film programmers Beatriz Navas Valdés and Natalia Marín Sancho note, ‘understood as gestures that allow us to reclaim both the present and the future.’ The work, coupled with the question of what primarily defines being an adult, has subsequently informed their new exhibit at MoMu in Antwerp: a three-channel audiovisual installation that catalogues a series of transformative moments in Spanish cinema, highlighting the role of costume and styling in reflecting pivotal scenes in women’s on screen lives.

Titled ‘Resolución’, a feminine word in Spanish meaning ‘something that is decided’ (a resolution), the piece was commissioned in conjunction with EUROPALIA ESPAÑA and features 108 actresses in total, in clips pulled from some 98 films made by 65 directors over nine decades; the teenage Penélope Cruz, in her red mini dress and espadrilles, from 1992’s Jamón, Jamón appears, likewise the protagonist of Cecilia Bartolome’s 1978 divorce-road trip feature, Vámonos, Bárbara. ‘‘Resolución’ explores a defining experience of adulthood: the moment of making decisions and taking charge for them, delving into the history of Spanish cinema in search of this emotional atmosphere across the decades, to trace how filmmakers and costume designers chose to dress women at these key crossroads,’ outline the curators.

‘Who could forget Carmen Maura burning a mattress to break with everything and leave behind that toxic relationship? If you're Spanish, these images live in your DNA,’ they continue, recalling an image from Pedro Almodóvar’s 1988 breakthrough picture, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. In the scene Maura’s Pepa, recently abandoned by her lover, wears just a bright red and white floral shirt, later swapped out for a suit jacket in the same shade. ‘Red evokes passion, vengeance, and blood. Cinematically speaking, no one has portrayed passion, jealousy, and vengeance like Almodóvar has, and he’s done so with a lightness and humour that is uniquely his,’ offer Navas Valdés and Marín Sancho, addressing the central role colour performs on screen.

‘Blue, especially denim, becomes a symbol of freedom in films by female directors from the 1970s. Purple, historically linked to feminism, is also the iconic colour of Spain’s “fantaterror” genre, filled with ghosts, witches, and demonic women who defy norms and channel untamed power. Red is omnipresent in his [Almodóvar’s] melodramas, but other iconic filmmakers also use it powerfully, like Vicente Aranda or Bigas Luna, especially in the unmistakable palette of Jamón, Jamón. And a new generation continues that legacy – Andrea Jaurrieta for instance, in her 2024 revenge story Nina.’

While the performances of actresses like Cruz, Maura, Victoria Abril, Sara Montiel and Aurora Bautista are the nucleus of the exhibit – highlighting how movies have mirrored the changing reality for women in Spain over the past century – Navas Valdés and Marín Sancho observe that cinema additionally, ‘captures how fashion “behaves” over time, how it’s worn, how it moves on the body, and how it interacts with narrative.’ As the Spanish costume designer Sonia Grande – a collaborator of Almodóvar’s for more than 20 years – told GQ in 2021, ‘Fashion [on screen] has to surprise and fall in love and tell things.’

Reflecting on the significance of costume as a storytelling device for filmmakers in Spain, specifically, the pair point to the country’s political landscape, and the industry changes that arrived after the fall of Francisco Franco’s authoritarian premiership. ‘Spain embraced modernity through cinema. It became a space where the country’s rich folklore, which the nationalist government sought to vindicate, co-existed with representations of contemporary fashion and modern aspirations,’ they tell Wallpaper*. ‘Spain’s role as an international centre for period film production since the 1950s, along with its early use of colour technologies in popular cinema, fostered a highly sophisticated costume design industry. Combining a long tradition of seamstresses with the growing professionalisation of costume design, wardrobe became a visual and metaphorical language of Spanish cinema – a way to express hidden desires and pains; to envision the dreams of a society longing for a more open, creative future.’

‘Through costume, hair, and makeup, we can see how fashion becomes a visual code, especially in times of censorship or social pressure,’ they continue. ‘During the Franco regime (for example), women dressed to make a good impression, or remain invisible. Later, we witness their gradual liberation wearing jeans, as the desire for change and the rise of feminism gained momentum. ‘Resolución’ captures both a psychological shift and its material expression in the body and style of women on screen.’

'Resolución' is at MoMu in Antwerp until 23 November 2025.

Two Antwerp-based creatives – Katrin Wouters of jewellery house Wouters & Hendrix and legacy model and meditation coach Hannelore Knuts – have joined forces on an unexpected piece of design: a scented ring called L’Issence.

Although this is a decidedly innovative project – the L’Issence ring cleverly conceals a wick infused with soothing essential oils – the history of aromatic jewellery spans centuries, from tiny perfume flacons fashioned into pendants to rings with secret compartments containing solid perfume. But with L’Issence, the concept is updated for 2025, created to punctuate an ‘always on’ lifestyle with small moments of calm.

Wouters & Hendrix makes Hannelore Knuts’ L’Issence ring

The ring’s name subtly plays with the word ‘essence’, replacing the ‘E’ with an ‘I’ in a nod to the act of ‘self-care’. ‘When I inhale the blend of essential oils contained in the ring, it helps me to anchor myself,’ Knuts, a 2023 Wallpaper* cover star, explains.

Knuts studied photography at Antwerp’s Royal Academy during the late 1990s, getting her start in modelling by walking the graduate runways for Bernhard Willhelm and Veronique Branquinho. Soon after, she became one of the most sought-after faces of the 2000s, shooting with the likes of Steven Meisel, Juergen Teller and Inez & Vinoodh, alongside forging relationships with designers including Miuccia Prada, Alexander McQueen, Karl Lagerfeld and Martin Margiela during his tenure at Hermès.

Seeking to ground herself after years navigating the whirlwind of the fashion industry, Knuts eventually retrained as a mindfulness and meditation coach to find equilibrium in her daily life – and also help others to do the same. ‘A small gesture has a profound impact on your being and your stress levels,’ she says. ‘If you are less stressed out, you can be much nicer to yourself and others. To anchor myself during modelling, essential oil was so helpful. It became a part of my life. Then, several years ago, I started to dream about scented jewellery,’ recalls Knuts.

What started as a dream became reality when, by chance – or perhaps fate – Knuts received a proposition from Wouters & Hendrix to become an ambassador for the jewellery brand, founded in 1984 by fellow Royal Academy graduates Katrin Wouters and Karen Hendrix. ‘What I like about Wouters & Hendrix is that it is rooted in craft, but combined with a sense of playfulness – there’s almost a sense of humour to its designs, but it remains elegant,’ adds Knuts, speaking of how their shared vision helped to bring L’Issence to life.

Crafted in two variations: sunstone set on a gold-plated chunky band, or labradorite mounted on a solid sterling silver base; the selection of these gemstones was guided more by instinct than by any belief in their mystical properties. The scent mechanism in each piece is ingeniously concealed behind small pieces of Iolite, flanking a bold, faceted cabochon. On one side, the round-cut Iolite turns, revealing a compartment for a scented wick. On the other side, another Iolite disc slides open with the lightest of touches. Then, wearers need only to bring the ring close to their nose and inhale Knuts’ custom blend of rhododendron, neroli, and ylang-ylang, developed in collaboration with Bioflore.

The making of the L’Issence ring was, at times, a challenging technical process for Katrin Wouters and the Wouters & Hendrix team, particularly when incorporating its scented component. ‘I thought about the right coating for the inside of the ring – the small tunnel bridging two Iolite covers – so that the oil does not cause any oxidation and the scent stays fresh,’ she tells Wallpaper*. ‘It was a slow process of almost two years. Slow but strong,’ she says.

When both iterations of the ring were finalised and in hand, Knuts turned to one of her long-time collaborators, Dutch artist and photographer Viviane Sassen, to capture the L’Issence campaign. Here, Sassen chose to work with her signature style of collage, juxtaposing an assemblage of images from the natural world, such as flowers and rocks, with shots of Knuts wearing the L’Issence jewellery.

As the limited-edition L’Issence ring nears its debut later this month (May 2025), Knuts reflects on its purpose. ‘Though a beautiful piece of design, the rings are not just an object,’ she says. ‘By bringing L’Issence into the world, we’re also sending out a message: take care of yourself.’

The L’Issence ring by Hannelore Knuts x Wouters & Hendrix is available in a limited-edition on the Wouters & Hendrix website, wouters-hendrix.com

A house that is like a total work of art. This was what the Belgian artist and painter Henry van de Velde wanted in 1895. Inspired by the Arts and Crafts philosophies of William Morris, Van de Velde, together with his wife Maria Sèthe, devised the whole environment of their home Villa Bloemenwerf. The cutlery, the wallpaper, the carpets, the chairs. They designed it all. ‘Once he’d done this he thought, okay, everything's now my vision but the only thing I don’t like is that my wife is wearing Parisian fashion so he started sampling clothes for her. Maria was presented together with the furniture as one harmonious concept,’ Romy Cockx, curator at MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp says.

Through sketches, garments, furniture and video, Cockx’s new show, ‘Fashion & Interiors: A Gendered Affair’, crisscrosses a century of shifting tastes, styles and attitudes. The notion of a complete work of art – a gesamtkunstwerk – is here in the exacting collections and dwellings of Ann Demeulemeester, who in 1983 bought Le Corbusier’s Maison Guiette – his only surviving building in Belgium. The prodigious Martin Margiela has recreated his first studio and shop interior, whitewashed in the style first advocated by Le Corbusier. We see three pieces of ‘furniture accessory’ conceived by Raf Simons for his graduate show from the Industrial Design course at SHIVKV in Genk circa 1991. ‘Fashion & Interiors’ unravels the hierarchy of the design disciplines.

’Fashion & Interiors: A Gendered Affair’ at MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp

‘Before I worked on the exhibition, I thought this idea of designing a complete world, or a total look, was coming from the 1980s, but I learned that it actually originates from over a century ago with the architect Josef Hoffmann together with the Wiener Werkstätte and designer Paul Poiret,’ Cockx says.

Hoffmann, like Van De Velde, was obsessed with the idea of a total creation. Around 1905, as he put the finishing touches to his Art Nouveau mansion Stoclet Palace, he noticed the lady of the house wearing designs by Poiret and immediately decided that the Werkstätte should have its own fashion department. (Cockx exhibits a carpet sketch for the house that influenced Hoffmann’s early clothing designs.) Poiret learned of this and upon visiting Belgium in 1930 said that he felt ‘this substitution of the architect's taste for the personality of the proprietors has always seemed to me a sort of slavery – a subjection that makes me smile’. Despite this, Poiret asked Hoffman to design a villa for him (it was never built) and he also hosted a fashion show in Vienna staged against Werkstätte furniture. A canny marketeer, Poiret – who designed fragrances, furniture, interior textiles as well as clothes – could be considered one of the first fashion designers to create a lifestyle brand.

The Austrian architect and cultural critic Adolf Loos cared a lot about clothes, yet he thought that Van de Velde and Hoffmann with their idea of matching everything created their own sort of fashion. Loos favoured a more utilitarian approach, clothes of quality made with good and simple details. Regarding women’s dress he wrote in 1902: ‘Ladies fashion! You disgraceful chapter in the history of civilisation! You tell of mankind's secret desires. Whenever we peruse your pages, our souls shudder at the frightful aberrations.’ Loos said that if women were independent from men, then they would discard layers of fabric and these frivolous bows and ribbons and feathers. ‘I thought this was quite funny, because, of course, we are now economically independent, but it's a rather complex discourse…’ Cockx says. ‘You could consider it feminist, but it’s open to multiple interpretations.’

While the 19th-century housewife was appreciated for her taste in decoration, Cockx argues that this changed when the role became a serious profession. Women were not considered to have a sense of form. It was a common idea perpetuated by male architects that women would follow the client’s wishes too much. And so we are introduced to the formidable Lily Reich – the first woman to be elected to the board of the Deutscher Werkbund in 1920. ‘In relation to fashion, she had an atelier in Berlin and started with embroidery before working with Hoffmann. She was designing exhibitions and also organising them. And she was quite successful.’

Around 1926, Reich met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and they began collaborating. Recent scholarship within the archives suggests that the iconic ‘Barcelona’ day bed was actually her conception. It is likely that she authored other pieces that today are accredited solely to Van Der Rohe. Very little of Reich’s own archive remains after her studio was bombed during World War II, yet from a 1926 issue of a German magazine we get an idea of her attitude to dress. She’s photographed wearing a boxy quilted silk jacket and a minimalist ribbed wool dress. Cockz says: ‘Her style was quite simple but she placed a lot of attention on detail and materials. Like Loos and other Modernist architects she was against imitation, against Parisian fashion, it was a bit of a nationalistic discourse.’

Overall the exhibition presents an overview of the importance of authorship. ‘You always look at things from your own time and your own perspective and that's maybe why I found it hard to have this singular statement about these men, for example, that is either positive or negative. My role here is to put it all out there so we can discuss it together,’ Cockz says. The discipline of design – whether of skirts or spoons or chairs or office blocks – has always been driven by a kind of creative coercion. Why am I wearing something? Why am I decorating my house in a certain way? Does it respond to who I am, or is it because somebody else is shaping me? These are the questions we take away from the museum.

‘Fashion & Interiors: A Gendered Affair’ runs until 3 August 2025 at MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp.

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The world of designer Jan-Jan Van Essche is one often taken for bohemian. Cerebral perhaps. Yet for those that know, his clothes are exacting and refined. Mathematical in their construction, and magical in their elegance, their materiality is firmly of this world.

Van Essche graduated from the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2003 and set up his label in 2010 from Atelier Solarshop, the Antwerp boutique he runs with his partner, Pietro Celestina. A demi-retrospective based on his S/S 2025 collection is now on view at MoMu, The Fashion Museum in Antwerp. It is ‘the story at the point of where we are now,’ he says.

‘Jan-Jan Van Essche – Khayal’ at MoMu Fashion Museum Antwerp 

Passing through curtains handmade by Lamine Diouf, a weaving artist from Senegal with whom Van Essche has collaborated for many years, you arrive alongside a kind of Japanese veranda. Inside, ten mannequins made using reclaimed bar stools and wooden shovels by Rune Tuerlinckx are rooted into a fine desert sand. Their round plaster heads have been painted with tea and dyes. ‘My clothes are not really the kind you could put onto a wall and look at like an artwork. They are very discrete. They’re made for life, not for showing so in that sense I needed the dynamic of what you feel in these mannequins. Because it is subtle and muted, you must bring some oomph to it in another way.’ Hanging on these reclaimed materials, the clothes – mostly constructed from squares and rectangles – still appear full, with a gentle volume that suggests flesh and bone.

Part anthropological exposition, part craft conservation, textile development is really where Van Essche’s métier comes into its own. A green fabric that looks like polyester is actually a dense cotton with silk, woven on a shuttle loom that ceased to be used after the 1950s. It is designed by an 86-year- old man in Japan who once developed fabrics for Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garcons. A grey-green textile is chambray, woven with two different shades of older undyed cotton that was reintroduced into the textiles industry in the 1980s. Van Essche says: ‘If you aren’t told this, I don’t think you fully understand the clothes. If you have such a blank surface, it needs to be carried by a good fabric. Over the years we found so many incredible fabrics and I’m psyched to be able to work with them. I just want to share it and keep that alive. You’re also supporting culture and history when you wear them.

Last year he met Rituraj Dewan, co-founder of 7Weaves, a small textile company that work with indigenous tribes in Assam’s forests. The two clicked and spent hours talking about their frustrations with the term ‘sustainable fashion’. ‘We are quite sustainable, but I would never call myself that. I don’t want to be in that market – it’s a buzzword that’s often misused. I’d rather lead by example than have big words. For instance, this poplin, I don’t know that it's officially sustainable, but I do know that this factory has only eight looms, and there are five people working there and they will not over buy, and they will not over produce. You can be sustainable in the wages you pay, how you treat people, paying your invoices on time.’ For this collection, Van Essche spent two weeks in Assam developing the textiles.

Despite a show at Pitti in January 2023, the Jan-Jan Van Essche label still rests in the shadows. The exhibition at MoMu is evidence of a genuine quiet luxury far from an anodyne minimalism. ‘There are things that I'm just not busy with that some fashion houses need to be busy with. We just created our island. When Pietro and I started, we had just enough experience in the broader fashion world to begin but we were also unaware enough to have the guts to do it. Over the years we learned through feedback. We live and learn. I used to think, “oh god I don't know what I'm doing,” but, I’m finally getting rid of that.’

Jan-Jan Van Essche – Khayal runs at MoMu Fashion Museum Antwerp until June 8 2025.

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To see the work of great 17th-century painter Paul Rubens, you need to go to the Rubens Hall in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp where his masterpiece Adoration of the Magi hangs alongside other works that speak to his amazing range and empathy. To understand who he was, though, you need to visit the far smaller Rubenshuis and its gardens nearby, recently given a new entrance building – one could think of it as a gatehouse to the Flemish artist's world – by the Antwerp-based architecture practice Robbrecht en Daem.

The cultural space houses an introduction to Rubens’ life, in the basement, a double-height public reception area on the ground floor, and a library, as well as offices on floors three, four and five.

A journey through Rubenshuis and the Flemish painter's world

The building, which has no physical connection to the historical house, still provides an entrance to and a view of the domestic universe that the artist-genius built for himself. In 1608, Rubens returned to the medieval streets of Antwerp from Italy, having immersed himself in the work of his Italian Renaissance predecessors and made a name for himself.

On his return, he bought a Flemish step-gabled house that faced onto the prestigious Wapper Square. He renovated it and, creating a courtyard, designed and built a new studio space in the Italian Mannerist style opposite. In so doing, he created an axis that extended from the gate through a portico and a symmetrically planted garden to a classical pavilion that culminated this line.

Robbrecht en Daem preserved this axis – all Rubens' own work – and set its new building to one side, demolishing nothing but an old wall, which gives another entrance onto the fashionable retail street of Hopland.

Robbrecht en Daem’s structure doesn’t ape either the Italianate or Flemish past but provides a confident impression of modernity in two façades; a more classical one faces the streetside. Here, the concept of the bookshelf – this corner of the garden is apparently the former site of Rubens’ long-demolished library – is strongest, although the slender concrete columns are absent from the central section, allowing as much light as possible to fall into the entrance atrium.

This relationship between column and glazing is inverted on the rear façade, with the colonnades only present at the very edge of the building and glazing is predominant across the floors. From the street side, this strategy with two outcomes suits the stylish symmetry of Hopland’s Beaux Arts buildings. To the rear, it is a bold modernist architecture addition to the historical variety of buildings surrounding the gardens.

On a symbolic level, this uninterrupted glass façade is also a means of ensuring the relationship between the recently replanted garden, Rubenshuis proper and the life and work of those in the library and offices. Within the five-storey new building, one is only ever several steps from a view onto the house and garden and the axis that runs right through it: the heart of a private world a true master created for himself.

robbrechtendaem.com

rubenshuis.be

Antwerp is having a moment. Not just because it’s hosting the anticipated Antwerp Six exhibition at MoMu (Fashion Museum Antwerp), but because word is spreading that this historic port city is alive with artists, designers and a distinctly avant-garde point of view. A visit here stimulates without overwhelming.

Just 45 minutes from Brussels, Antwerp has long been an easy day trip, but that’s no longer enough. In addition, every May, the city hosts Antwerp Art Weekend: a four-day, citywide takeover where galleries, museums and project spaces open simultaneously, creating a dense, walkable art circuit.

Antwerp is defined by contrast. Old-world Flemish grandeur meets industrial port energy. Renaissance façades sit alongside bold contemporary interventions like the Port House, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. The city unfolds through cobbled streets that open out towards the revitalised docklands, shifting scale and atmosphere as you move through it. It feels stylish, slightly raw, and culturally literate – a place where people live, work, and make things. The best thing about Antwerp is that everyone interested in the arts will find a point of entry.

Here’s what we recommend.

An essential guide to Antwerp: 11 hotspots for design lovers

Where to stay

Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp

Antwerp’s most talked-about development is the rambling, new Botanic Sanctuary, a top-tier hotel occupying an ancient refuge on the edge of the city’s bijou botanical garden. The most striking aspect of the scheme, by the city’s own AID Architecten, is the multistorey spa and rooftop pool, kept indulgently warm under a peaked glasshouse structure that overlooks the 16th-century rooftops and eponymous gardens. It provides the flourishing neighbourhood with another sort of sanctuary.

Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp is located at Leopoldstraat 26, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

De Witte Lelie

Designed by Ann Dierick, De Witte Lelie is an 11-room boutique hotel tucked away in a heritage villa. Even more noticeable than the mammoth one-off sofas and gem-like mosaic tiles she sourced are the dazzling wallpapers appliquéd with sequins, faux fur and hand-painted motifs, most from Brooklyn’s Flavor Paper. Outsiders, once forbidden, can now come for a peep by booking into the new restaurant Lilium, located in the old stable.

De Witte Lelie is located at Keizerstraat 16/18, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Hotel Julien

Hotel Julien has recently reopened following a complete makeover led by founder Mouche Van Hool, alongside interior designer Bea Mombaers and architect Peter Ivens. Since opening in 2004, it has remained a constant for those returning to the Belgian city’s particular mix of history and forward-looking design. Occupying two adjoining 16th-century townhouses, the property carries a natural sense of charm, pairing original features – fireplaces, beams and cornicing – with a more restrained, contemporary sensibility.

Hotel Julien is located at Korte Nieuwstraat 24, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Where to eat and drink

De Nor

De Nor is Flemish slang for ‘prison’ – think ‘clink’, ‘slammer’, ‘joint’ – and thus an appropriate name for this interactive installation on the grounds of the Middelheim Museum, styled like an Eastern European bunker. Designed by local artist Dennis Tyfus and built from raw concrete with help from FVWW Architects, it acts as a standalone exhibition space, with a performance stage, bar and bleachers for loitering, all open during scheduled events.

De Nor is located at Middelheimlaan 59, 2020 Antwerp, Belgium

De Plek

A neo-Gothic tribute to the city’s towering Our Lady cathedral, De Plek, or ‘the place’, is a welcome corrective to the generic café genre, with a striking blue-painted serving pod constructed by the interior architects Van Staeyen. Not only has it transformed the church’s former sacristy, but it also brews its own dark and blonde Trappist beers, and hosts a regular Sunday sing-song after the organ concerts next door.

De Plek is located at Handschoenmarkt, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Eldo

Located directly across from the Ann Demeulemeester store (and featuring her Serax range as part of its glassware), Eldo is the city’s latest hot ticket. All furnishings and art found inside are by emerging Dutch and Belgian designers, such as Studio HOO and Middernacht & Alexander. There’s also a grand light installation at the top of the building by Stanislas Lahaut that welcomes patrons. The food and drinks are bistro-style, centred around open-fire cooking. Don’t miss the signature steak frites.

Eldo is located at Graaf van Egmontstraat 57/59, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Osaka Antwerp

Osaka’s take on the Japanese izakaya delivers superlative bites of quintessentially Belgian ingredients: sardines on brioche, pickled salmon sashimi and North Sea oysters served with natural wines. But the deft tone-on-tone interiors by Petillon Ceuppens risk overshadowing it all. Starting with a Brutalist concrete foundation, the architects added wall panelling, countertops and a pair of three-metre double entrance doors in sheet-thin stainless steel. Neon-tube lighting brings a brief pop of colour.

Osaka is located at Bollandusstraat 17, Bollandusstraat 17, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

What to do

Axel Vervoordt Gallery

Axel Vervoordt Gallery is an unmissable cultural haven just a 30-minute car ride from Antwerp. What started in 1857 as a red-brick malting distillery eventually became Kanaal, an artistic, residential and commercial destination on the banks of the Albert canal. The 55,000 sqm site serves as the headquarters for the foundation of Axel Vervoordt, whose company started buying up the site in 1998. Vervoordt’s youngest son, Dick, masterminded the creation of 98 apartments, 30 offices, an organic food market, public gardens, a fitness centre, an auditorium and all-important 4,000 sqm exhibition space. The latter houses Vervoordt’s personal collection built up over five decades. Anish Kapoor, Tatsuo Miyajima, Marina Abramović and James Turrell have permanent installations there too.

Axel Vervoordt Gallery is located at Stokerijstraat 19, 2110 Wijnegem, Belgium

Cour

A design-led gallery on Groenplaats, open weekends, set within a residential flat. Exhibitions unfold across domestic spaces, giving objects a different rhythm. Next on view is ‘After Work’ with Julie Kegels.

Cour is located at Groenplaats 42, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

MoMu

Belgium’s – nay the world’s – greatest fashion city has a lot to say about the art form, which is why the fashion museum, MoMu, is so important to this neighbourhood, surrounded by boutiques of the eminent Antwerp Six (also the theme of its current exhibition). The elegant domed flatiron building, recently overhauled by B Architecten, is like the Met crossed with the V&A, with its own outré flavour. Recent honourees include Belgian darlings Olivier Theyskens and Walter van Beirendonck, who elevate fashion to performance art.

MoMu is located at Nationalestraat 28, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Where to shop

Ann Demeulemeester

The building is a honeyed-stone classic. But just like the MO of resident designer Ann Demeulemeester, it defies tradition with crisp, monochrome minimalism conceived by her husband, Patrick Robyn. With low geometric pedestals and a long fringed banquette, echoing Demeulemeester’s deconstructed chunky knitwear, he resists the temptation to build into the vaulted space. His only intervention is a white steel staircase leading to a loft showcasing hefty leather boots and accessories – and a discreet window facing a tropical garden, open in summer. The label’s delicate ceramics collection, black stain bleeding into white, is a highlight.

Ann Demeulemeester is located at Leopold de Waelplaats, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium

For Dries Van Noten, 2024 has been a year to remember.

In March, the Belgian designer announced his imminent retirement from fashion. Having risen to prominence during the 1980s as part of the Antwerp Six (a collective of graduates from the city’s Royal Academy, including Walter Van Beirendonck and Ann Demeulemeester), almost four decades on, he took his final bow on a runway, shimmering with silver leaf, during June’s S/S 2025 menswear shows in Paris. ‘I want to shift my focus to all the things I never had time for,’ he said at the time. ‘I’m sad, but at the same time, happy.’

Dries Van Noten: why the designer is growing his beauty line

Famously, one of Van Noten’s greatest pleasures is his 55-acre garden, in the grounds of the Palladian-style home he shares with his partner in Lier, near Antwerp. The garden – and the botanical world in particular – has provided him with boundless inspiration for his signature use of colour, print and texture. So when he launched Dries Van Noten Beauty in 2021 with a set of lipsticks and fragrances harnessing all nature has to offer, it felt like an organic move.

Perhaps, the beauty line’s intrinsic connection with the plants and flowers growing in his Van Noten’s garden has informed his decision to continue in an advisory role for this arm of the business, after stepping back from his position as the brand’s creative director and CEO. ‘At the beginning, I saw my garden as kind of an escape,’ he says. ‘But then I started to realise that escape is something that’s part of me. The garden balances me as a human being. In fashion, you try to control everything. But in the garden, you have to obey nature. It helps me to stay humble.’

Dries Van Noten Beauty is also built around the idea of ‘impossible combinations’ (a theme celebrated by Wallpaper* in the December 2023 issue) whether it’s the luscious reds and pinks of the lipstick collection punctuated with shades of deep violet and beige-toned nude, or the blend of notes found in its scents. Four of the most recent compositions include Bitter Splash, which marries tart grapefruit with powdery iris and vetiver; Vanille Camouflage, where resinous galbanum balances out the creamy sweetness of bourbon pods; Camomile Satin, containing soothing camomile and vanilla; and Crazy Basil – with notes of cedarwood – which Van Noten describes as ‘putting your nose in a pot of basil’.

When asked to choose a favourite flower from his garden, he says: ‘In summer, it’s the purple cyclamen, which flowers under the beech trees. I think it’s magical because it’s the last sign of summer. In December, I love the witch hazels, which are fantastic because they’re the tiniest flowers with the most delicate perfume. Next, you have the hellebores, before the first daffodils in early spring. Then in May, the peonies and roses. For me, it’s about the entire cycle of the seasons.’

The nurture of flowers and plants requires patience. ‘My life changed quite a lot this year,’ he says. ‘It’s an exciting time. We had some storms, with big trees falling over, so there is more work to do in the garden and some thinking to be done.’ And it would seem that Van Noten is approaching this new chapter in his life almost as he does his garden. ‘The quality has to be there, from the packaging to sustainability,’ he says. ‘But the good thing is we have time.’

A version of this article appears in the December 2024 issue of Wallpaper* , available in print on international newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

driesvannoten.com

‘Masquerade, Make-Up & Ensor’, a new exhibition at MoMu in Antwerp, examines the correlation between James Ensor and contemporary creative figures. A founding member of the avant-garde group Les XX, Ensor is championed as one of Belgium’s great proto-modernist artists.

Throughout his practice, ‘the mask’ was a recurring motif, often referencing the make-up trends of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As art historian Susan M Canning observes of the painter and printmaker’s work, ‘masking, make-up and arrangements of masks […] promote the disruptive and transgressive subterfuge of artifice’.

Inside ‘Masquerade, Make-Up & Ensor’ at MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp

‘Ensor was a perfect way to feature make-up and hairstylists in MoMu for the first time,’ says Elisa De Wyngaert, who co-curated the show with Kaat Debo and Romy Cockx. ‘But also a way to discuss beauty ideals and everything surrounding the fashion industry.’

Also central to the exhibition’s genesis were three points of exploration that De Wyngaert, Debo and Cockx wanted to highlight: Why do we wear masks? Why are people so afraid of visible ageing? How do we deal with ideals of beauty that are always changing and are impossible to achieve?

The multimedia works on display span paintings, photographs, scrapbooks, mannequins, videos and more. A small series of paintings by Ensor marks the start of the exhibition, followed by self-portraits of mammoth proportions by Issy Wood, highlighting the painter’s discomfort with being photographed. Elsewhere, Genieve Figgis’ ‘grotesque and beautiful’ characters hang on canvases against the backdrop of lilac curtains decorated with huge bows (a highlight of Janina Pedan’s exhibition design).

American photographer Bruce Gilden’s disarming close-ups of his subjects are mirrored in a selection of Cindy Sherman’s Head Shots series, while artist Tschabalala Self explores the idea of persona and politics. ‘A lot of the time beauty ideals reflect the politics you want to align yourself with,’ she considers on a nearby wall panel. ‘People often underestimate the political aspect of beauty.’

From the worlds of fashion and pop culture, Pat McGrath’s viral ‘porcelain doll’ make-up, conceived for John Galliano’s Maison Margiela 2024 Spring Summer Artisanal collection is presented with Another Galliano fixture, the ‘Rosalie’ doll. The latter can be found in a space dedicated to the master of hair Julien d’Ys, as well as a cloud-like sculpture he created for Wallpaper* in 2022. Items from Rihanna’s Fenty line and Martin Parr’s 2019 beauty campaign for Gucci both make cameos.

Perhaps the most significant, however, is the contribution of make-up artist Inge Grognard. Here, the looks she created for Maison Martin Margiela between 1988 and 2008 are shown almost like posters, the respective products used to create them hanging in sandwich bags below, while a video of Grognard today concludes the exhibition. ‘The film is very special; you don’t often hear the voice of make-up artists,’ notes De Wyngaert.

‘I am still flabbergasted by the amount of research [hair and make-up artists do]; they are true painters of fashion, the way they draw, the preparations,’ she continues. ‘True artists just working in a different medium. I didn’t think make-up was superficial [before], but the quality of the work, the reflection and depth, is something I’m just stunned by.’

For Cockx, whose focus was specific to the work and social landscape of Ensor, surprise was reserved for the language – and attitudes – surrounding make-up application. ‘What really struck me was, when looking at the fashion magazines from the 19th century, they literally compare make-up to applying paint [on a canvas],’ she adds.

Though not explicitly gendered, ‘Masquerade, Make-Up & Ensor’ strongly focuses on women, with whom the eccentric and opinionated Ensor had a complicated relationship. His 1925 poem, On Women, for example, is a deeply misogynistic text. Yet he also lived with – and frequently painted – his mother, aunt and sister.

‘Women wearing too much make-up is still perceived as, “what is she hiding?” not “oh, she wants to express herself”,’ suggests De Wyngaert. ‘There’s so much judgment; both in Ensor’s time and still today. It’s this kind of impossibility – how do you ever win? That is something we wanted to leave space for. Women constantly feel they are not in charge of their own bodies – we wanted to explore where these fears or anxieties come from.’

In a later scene, fears of ageing are projected onto a would-be bride. Surrounded by a sheer curtain, she stands before a three-piece mirror, the extravagance of a Christian Lacroix gown mirrored in her hair, which is piled high in an exaggerated style that riffs on the beehive.

‘That was the most experimental installation, with Cyndia Harvey,’ shares De Wyngaert, alluding to the revered British hairstylist. ‘It was an idea from a previous interview with Lacroix for “Echo: Wrapped in Memory”. He told me about this obsession with Miss Havisham and that planted the seed. I hope it gives some strength, acknowledgement and empowerment to ageing women, or ageing people for that matter,’ she concludes.

‘Masquerade, Make-up & Ensor’ is on display at MoMu - Fashion Museum Antwerp until 2 February 2025

momu.be

Katrin Wouters and Karen Hendrix were jewellery designers to the Antwerp Six, emerging with the art-school collective when, in the spirit of a radical Flemish fashion bomb, they left Belgium in a rented truck and rolled up at London Fashion Week in 1986. The pair had honed their craft alongside Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester and the others at Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Having started selling their Surrealist-tinged, handmade jewels in Antwerp two years before, they were simultaneously creating pieces with the designers around their collections.

This week, during Paris Fashion Week, Wouters & Hendrix (which still adheres to the RTW-schedule of two collections a year), launches its most high-brow project to date, in partnership with the recently revived Royal Museum of Fine Arts, or KMSKA, Antwerp. Part of the jewellery house’s 40th anniversary celebrations, the ‘Je est une autre’ collection is directly inspired by four paintings Karin Wouters and her team chose from the museum’s 19th-century saloon. The result is a collection that culminates in four 19th-century style parures (complete sets) of jewellery, also offered as separate RTW pieces. As is typical with Wouters & Hendrix designs, many of the rings, earrings and necklaces, created from sterling silver and gold-plated silver, are ingeniously modular and are carefully crafted to be dismantled and worn in numerous ways.

‘When the museum posed the idea of a collaboration their initial thought was that perhaps we might make a jewellery line for them,’ Karin tells me at the house atelier, a former liquor distillery in central Antwerp, ‘But for me it's impossible just to make only beautiful things. I need to have a story, something with depth, so we asked to choose four paintings that would make us think. Then we asked ourselves: “If these women lived today, who would they be? What jewels would we create for them?”’

For Carmen Willems, general director at KMSKA, any Wouters & Hendrix collaboration was a win-win. ‘Firstly, the fact of them being such strong craftsmen was a genuinely good fit. Then, the way in which they always bring a twist to what they do correlates with our new vision for the museum,’ she told me at the museum's party to celebrate the brand's 40th anniversary.

After a few sessions with the museum curators, the jewellery designers settled on a formidable quartet. ‘We approached our visits in an impulsive way, while listening to the museum curators' stories and insights,' Katrin reveals of the collaborative process. 'The four paintings we settled on intrigued me very much: the Parisian Sphinx is dreamy, mysterious, even, while a defiant Cleopatra is experimenting with poison in preparation for her death. The Countess Rattazzi appears daring, rebellious, just in the way she stands, and the painting of the woman with the babies? She drew us in just as we were walking by.’

As a result, the parures were created to fit the characters of each woman in the paintings, as Katrin and her team evisaged them. "The Parisian Sphinx" by Alfred Stevens inspired the aquamarine-themed ‘Parure de l’Entourage’. The salonnière "Countess Rattazzi" by Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran informed the ‘Parure de l’Incroyable’ in boldly elegant chain designs that ‘shimmer without the need for stones’. Alexandre Cabanel’s "Cleopatra", meanwhile, is the force behind ‘Parure de la Salamandre’, its salamanders reflecting the Egyptian queen’s ‘talent for shrewd reinvention’. The ‘Parure de La Peregrina’, a homage to the image of the ‘formidable, nameless mother in Virginie Breton’s "A l’eau!" is a particular favourite, a pearl-based collection that ‘celebrates the ocean as our birthplace and the extraordinariness of “ordinary life”.

Though, perhaps lesser known in the UK, the independent nature of Wouters & Hendrix's topsy-turvy collections of handmade costume- and fine-jewellery is wildly appealing to a new generation. Collaborations are, of course, in the brand’s DNA, and projects with Belgian photographer Mous Lamrabat and accessories and jewellery designer Stephanie D’heygere are just two notable Wouters & Hendrix creative get-togethers. The Antwerp house currently helms a string of standalone boutiques across Belgium and Amsterdam, with international outposts in Japan, China and North America.

Karen Hendrix left the business a couple of years ago but her maverick spirit is palpable in the atelier and through the collections. ‘Forty years ago, I could not have imagined our world could be like this,’ Katrin Wouters admits. 'We started, just the two of us, believing in our small company and what we were doing. And now we’ve arrived here. When I look back, I see that each jewellery story we create, though different and surprising, is a reaction to the collection before, in that, we take the knowledge and experience we get and always try something new with it’.

Wouters & Hendrix designs are available to buy at Wouters-hendrix.com and farfetch.com

Design and craftsmanship unite at Paardenmarkt 68 in Antwerp, a rococo mansion-turned-multi-brand retail destination that brings together Revised furniture, Wool & Wire, Gemla, Rex Kralj and Tato Italia in an eclectic curation spanning the whole of Europe.

Wool & Wire’s sustainable carpets created from natural raw materials, fully crafted in Belgium, make a warm foil for the pieces from Gemla, Sweden's oldest furniture factory. Rex Kralj, which pays tribute to Slovenian architect Niko Kralj’s furniture designs with its sculpted aesthetic, adds a contemporary edge to the collection, as does Italian lighting brand Tato.

Revised at Paardenmarkt 68

The timeless aesthetic championed by Paardenmarkt 68 is reflected in the ethos of Revised founders, Suzy and Casper Vissers. ‘We all want to revise our lives at a certain moment in time, take a new challenge on board,’ they say. ‘Keep the good things in life and add another layer of inspiration. The word “Revised” is a different story for each of us. What we share is the human ability to review, reconsider, reflect and refresh. That is exactly what makes us feel wonderful and take charge of life.’

It is a philosophy encapsulated in Revised’s artisan products, created in Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. ‘We deal directly from the factory to you. Revised products are designed and made in such a sustainable way that they will last for generations. We have a repair service should furniture need repair and we ship as flat as possible to ensure CO2 emissions are as low as possible. Our collection includes seating, tables, storage items, lighting elements and accessories [in a style that] is modern, elegant and heart-warming, with gentle, organic shapes and details. Each piece is a celebration of pure, solid, high-quality materials such as wood, marble, metal and glass.’

paardenmarkt68.com

British artist Anthea Hamilton brings a subversive edge to everyday motifs in her first major survey exhibition. ‘Mash Up’, produced with the support of Loewe and now open at the M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, rethinks familiar pop culture references in a playful infusion of materials, lending a discomfiting aura to familiar tropes.

The new exhibition encompasses 70 works, both new and taken from throughout her two-decade-long career. They build on Hamilton’s history of creating large-scale, immersive pieces which encourage a visceral reaction in the viewer, creating a utopian world in which gender roles, sexuality and domesticity cease to be stereotypical but instead become in flux, fluid.

Hamilton is inspired by French dramatist Antonin Artaud’s emphasis on creating a tangible understanding of images, emphasising the role of the body in both the works themselves and in the reactions they elicit from the viewer. In this, her largest exhibition to date, she continues to explore these themes through an amalgamation of sculpture, performance and installation, while inviting a deeper reading into her practice. By taking the body out of context, she invites a new consideration of representation and identity politics. The inclusion of unexpected materials and staging lends a slyly humorous edge to installations that trigger a jarring discombobulation.

Hamilton juxtaposes elements coaxed from fashion, architecture, food and design in the works, which include The Squash (Tate Britain, 2018), The New Life (Venice Biennale, 2019, and Secession gallery, 2018), and Lichen! Libido! Chastity! (Turner Prize, 2016 and SculptureCenter, 2015). Installations draw both on Hamilton’s interdisciplinary approach and her preference for vast performance spaces for pieces that are defined by an anthropomorphic physicality.

These post-identity themes, first explored by Hamilton in 2014 upon her participation in the research exhibition ‘Don’t You Know Who I Am? Art After Identity Politics’ at M HKA, are explored deeper in ‘Mash Up’ thanks to the collaborative nature of the project. Co-creators include artist Nicholas Byrne, architect and designer Gaetano Pesce, gardener and writer Roger Phillips, performer Carlos Maria Romero, photographer Lewis Ronald, as well as Loewe, and the brand’s creative director, Jonathan Anderson.

INFORMATION

Anthea Hamilton ’Mash Up’, until 15 May 2022 at M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp. muhka.be

Staircases lead nowhere; walls bring passages to an abrupt halt; ceilings appear without warning. In the surreal world of David Umemoto’s brutalist concrete sculptures, reality has little authority and imagination roams free. 

Like many creatives during the pandemic, the Canadian artist was deprived of studio access for many months, forced to find new modes of creation. This prompted a period of exploration, ‘mental gymnastics’ and though the artist was well versed in planning his concrete sculptures on paper, he set himself a new challenge. 

Inspired by Japanese kirigami, the former architect conceived three-dimensional objects using only a square sheet of paper, without loss, without additions and without glue. This resulted in a new exhibition ‘Folded Stone’, now on view at Modern Shapes Gallery in Antwerp. ‘My concrete work is done in the mass. I usually start with a theoretical prism from which I remove matter. The process with paper is totally different since it is surface work’, the artist explains. ‘I start with a generally square sheet that I cut and fold. In this new Folded Stone series, I try to position myself halfway through this mass-surface duality.’ 

Umemoto’s hand-created work sits at the intersection of architecture, sculpture and pure fantasy. His low-tech approach stems from a commitment to plainness, simplicity and imperfection, far removed from the fast-paced demands of modern production. Each component is cast using modular moulds which can be arranged – and subsequently rearranged – like concrete puzzles. 

Umemoto’s influences are somewhat eclectic, from pre-Columbian rock dwellings to fragments of Babylonian cities. Artistically, it’s Rachel Whiteread meets MC Escher; or the surreal twists of Giorgio de Chirico combined with the postmodernist mazes of Ricardo Bofill or the haunting webs of Giovanni Battista’s Prisons of Piranesi. There’s an eerie quality to these matrix-like sculptures – architectural dioramas which, if one were to enter, might never leave. 

Like much of Umemoto’s work, Folded Stone is an exercise in imagination, restraint and the poetics of architecture

INFORMATION

David Umemoto: ‘Folded stone’, 4 March - 28 March 2021, Modern Shapes Gallery. modernshapes.com

davidumemoto.com

ADDRESS

Museumstraat 29
2000 Antwerpen

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Fortune favours the brave. The 1970s were an era of mid-engine madness, when the big sports car makers explored the packaging options of putting the engine behind the driver, allowing for better balance, sleeker aerodynamics, and — most importantly of all — more outrageous styling. Some of the greatest Italian cars of the era benefitted from this layout, from Ferrari’s first mid-engine road car, the 1971 Berlinetta Boxer, through to the angular Lamborghini Countach that ushered in the supercar era. Their compatriots, Maserati, made a similar transition from front-engine sports cars and grand tourers to low-slung two-seaters, with the introduction of the 1971 Bora and its successor, the Merak (actually a four-seater, albeit with very small rear seats). For Maserati, it was an expensive foray into new territory. The 70s fuel crisis, a short but ultimately disastrous spell of ownership by the French marque Citroen, and perpetual cash flow problems meant that Maserati was never able to capitalise on the super sports genre, and the company that ultimately emerged focused almost exclusively on sports GTs and saloons. In 1993 Maserati reconnected with its Italian ancestry with its sale to Fiat and the company has been part of the FCA Group (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) since 2011.

Now the mid-engine Maserati is back in the form of the MC20. Unveiled in early September, it is the car to take Maserati into a new decade, as well as being the first all-new product from the company since the launch of the Ghibli in 2013. On the one hand, it’s a spiritual evolution of a very limited-edition machine, the MC12 Stradale, a raw road-going version of GT racer, developed from the Ferrari Enzo in 2004 of which just 50 examples were made. But on the other it’s a challenger to the status quo established by Ferrari and Lamborghini and soon Aston Martin.

The Maserati Corse 2020 is about speed, dynamics and power. Built around a carbon-fibre monocoque, the MC20 is pared back and functional, inside and out. It exudes a compact, taut capability, and the white finish on the show car’s bodywork is a world away from the glossy, shouty reds and yellows of its rivals. Scissor doors allow access to a dark, focused cockpit, with plenty of exposed carbon-fibre and Alcantara finishes. The audio system was designed in conjunction with Sonus Faber, the acclaimed Italian loudspeaker manufacturers, and is controlled via a dash-mounted tablet. The car will debut with a twin turbo V6, with a hybrid and pure electric version further down the line.

We spoke to Klaus Busse, the man who heads up FCA’s design team, overseeing Fiat, Abarth, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo, as well as Maserati, about the origins and aspirations for the company’s new model

Wallpaper*: This is the first mid-engine Maserati production car for many years. Did you take inspiration from the past or is it a clean sheet design?

Klaus Buss: When it comes to designing a car, how clean sheet can the design really be? If I were to describe the design philosophy behind the MC20 in two words, they would be Purity and Contrast. As you can see from the car, the design is all about purity contrasted by extremely complex functional areas. One of our main inspirations for the MC20 came from the A6GCS Pinin Farina of the 1950s. This car in fact, is naturally pure and beautifully sculpted, creating a silhouette praised for its simplicity, which is then contrasted by the exposed exhaust pipes underneath the driver’s door showcasing its high degree of functionality. This is the same design philosophy used for the MC20 where the upper part of the car is all about purity and sculptural simplicity, while the lower part is true technical performance.

W*: What about more recent examples from the company’s history?

KB: MC20’s design philosophy was not the only thing that was born by looking back into Maserati’s past: there are some details in this new super sports car that are echoes from the past. For example, the new face of Maserati – as in with the low front grill and the high headlights – were inspired by the MC12. MC20 represents not only an ode to the brand’s past achievements but is also the face of Maseratis of the future.

W*: How long has this car been in planning?

KB: The development period for the MC20 was about 24 months.

W*: What are the key visual elements that define a mid-engine Maserati?

KB: There are no key elements that are specific to a mid-engine Maserati, but there are key visual elements that define the MC20 and Maserati’s aesthetic future. As mentioned, our design philosophy is driven by purity. For the MC20, this translated in creating something with no frills, no excess, and no unnecessary details. We tried to avoid visual noise, in order for the car to speak for itself. We did not design it around the air intakes; on the contrary, we restrained ourselves and have them only where they are absolutely necessary. By doing so, we now have a car that is a pure sculpture reduced to the main proportions. A car that does not need to shout at its environment through loud detailing, but truly stands out for raw beauty and capabilities.

W*: How does the design express the technology of the launch V6 and possible future powertrains?

KB: The MC20, being a super sports car in every inch of its design, was created by respecting and embracing technological and performance necessities. Whether it is the silhouette of the car that defines the cabin space, or the aerodynamic flow and the downforce of the car, Maserati has brought to the market a dynamic sculpture, powered V6 twin turbo petrol engine, which will propel the brand into the future. In addition, one should notice the balance between the pure elegance of the silhouette and the integrated air intakes, which are needed to supply the necessary cooling and the thermal exhaust to the V6. However, it is fundamental to keep in mind that the true expression of MC20 is in the incredible collaboration and teamwork we had with the engineers in Modena.

INFORMATION

maserati.com

Also see the 2024 Maserati MC20 Leggenda and Icona, two limited-edition supercars

Over his long career, Vincent Van Duysen had been approached many times to work on a hotel, but it wasn’t until Mouche Van Hool, the owner of the soigné Hotel Julien, came knocking for help on her sophomore project that the Belgian architect finally found his match.

As it turns out, the 19th-century Military Hospital and Augustinian convent in the city’s Green Quarter development was an ideal canvas for his trademark blend of feathery light aesthetics and gently coloured palette. Five separate buildings – including the nuns’ old private chapel and living quarters – and three walled gardens have been stitched together into a 44-room cloistered retreat. Absurdly high ceilings, restored floor tiles, and oversized arched windows form an impressively lofty backdrop that Van Duysen dresses with Flos lamps, deeply set black leather sofas, and low-slung tables.

The spa, meanwhile, is stocked with Bamford products, but the hotel’s tent-pole attraction is the restaurant where chef Nick Bril orchestrates a mod menu that includes roasted brill paired with beurre noisette, and roasted local vegetables glazed with fermented bean sauce.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Jules Bordetstraat 5

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‘Women artists’, says Elisa De Wyngaert with a sense for understatement, ‘have not had a very privileged position in the art world.’ What with textiles having female, domestic and quotidian connotations, much of the art form has been undervalued greatly. And still, textiles are crucial in how we understand culture; they function as a universal means of communication.

De Wyngaert has curated ‘Soft? Tactile Dialogues’, an exhibition staged by Antwerp’s fashion museum MoMu – and the very first one, in the museum’s 16-year history, to focus on textiles instead of fashion. Located on the first floor and in the monumental modernist staircase of the Maurice Verbaet Center, the exhibition ties in seamlessly with that private art collection’s mission: to bring attention to under-appreciated Belgian post-war art.

Most of the works on display, from 1970s feminist, post-minimalist and fiber art to contemporary work, match the monumentality of the Maurice Verbaet building. An immense power and presence emanates from the experimental work Alruin, by Veerle Dupont, who used tar ropes from the harbour for a large-scale abstract and experimental work that, aside from its tactility, also activates the sense of smell. Dupont does not shy away from working with pig bladders and horse’s tails, too, subverting the idea that textile art is for the delicate.

In Edith Van Driessche’s work Use No Hooks, packing cloths are repurposed to create a narrative, a secret history. Several ‘soft sculptures’ by Maria Kowalski – a Polish artist and political refugee in Belgium – engage with the viewer through their spatial dimensions. Worked under the pseudonym Tapta, her pieces Structure Torsadée, from 1973, and Horizon Flexible, from 1976, are three-dimensional installations that incorporate natural fibres like sisal, which Tapta learned to work with in the Congo.

The contemporary textile artworks that are spread over the entrance hall and the staircase’s eight landings show how artists’ relationships with textile have evolved. Unlike the aforementioned first generation, artists such as Kati Heck, Nel Aerts, Sven ‘t Jolle and Klaas Rommelaere are not tied to the dogmatic thinking that has for so long restricted textile artists in terms of interpretative breadth and reach.

The current generation often works with a variation of media and uses textile to express themselves without the proverbial hang-ups. From humorous and figurative, to abstract experimentation, it’s hard to imagine a contemporary art world that does not integrate textiles in some way – its tactile qualities a rewarding tool to communicate concepts such as intimacy, social criticism, and alienation.

INFORMATION

‘Soft? Tactile Dialogues’ is on view until 24 February 2019. For more information, visit the MoMu website

ADDRESS

Maurice Verbaet Center
Mechelsesteenweg 64A
2018 Antwerp

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‘There is this sentence in my head on loop: “I want to go home – but I am home,”’ muses Friedrich Kunath during a walkthrough of his first solo exhibition, ‘Where is the Madness that You Promised Me’, at Antwerp’s Tim Van Laere Gallery. Born in East Germany, the artist has been living in Los Angeles for just over a decade. ‘I am constantly between these two points. There is always a question of “homelessness”.’

Having relocated to Los Angeles in 2007, Kunath spent a year driving through his new city, accumulating Americana knick-knacks from thrift stores. ‘[Moving] is such a big change. When you’re in Germany and you paint, it’s something completely different. Now you’re on an empty canvas culturally. Something was bound to happen, I just didn’t know what.’

While the multidisciplinary artist dabbles in painting, sculpture and drawing, he became preoccupied with airbrushing following his move to the West Coast. ‘The whole practice of airbrushing was so conceptually-based, that I doubt it was even painting,’ says the artist, who was struck by how unburdened LA was by history. ‘You literally don’t touch the canvas. There’s a built-in distance to everything, but that’s what I wanted.’

Installation view of ‘Where is the Madness that You Promised Me’ at Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp.

Kunath recalls being drawn to the Pioneer paintings of America – particularly the Hudson River School and artists Frederick Edwin Church and Thomas Moran. ‘I had an obsession with rediscovering this America from 200-300 years ago, but expressed through the aesthetic of Venice Beach.’ (The German artist quips about forming the LA River School, due to his studio’s location.)

After a six-year hiatus from painting, Kunath felt the urge to reconnect with the medium, and began a new body of work last summer, now on view in the Antwerp gallery. ‘It was only logical to go to the opposite end of [airbrushing], to not question what painting means in 2018. You learn not to dissect everything. It was very freeing to just push paint around for a couple of months without any direction.’

It’s little surprise then that his florid artworks are imbued with a medley of motifs that reference everything from conceptual art to Hollywood kitsch; and popular culture. At Tim Van Laere Gallery, Kunath’s Technicolor canvases depict the saint Hieronymus wearing Converse, or a choir of bananas serenading to a landscape that recalls German romanticism, as well as a feel-good helping of sunsets and watercolour washes, often overlay with handwritten text, cartoons and doodles.

We Must Believe In Spring, by Friedrich Kunath, 2018

A single denim-clad leg emerges curiously from the gallery ceiling, treading a rainbow gradation of ‘paint’ – the idea for this particular work, Kunath explains, simply came to him in a dream. Other works are more directly autobiographical (Kunath’s daughter has contributed scrawls to one painting, for example).

‘I feel that it’s the very engine of my work, this longing for a place that doesn’t exist – it’s an empty promise,’ he explains. ‘LA is an empty promise – I am fully aware of it – but I also love it. I love the stupidity, and I love the substance and the narratives that the city provides.’ It’s clear Kunath doesn’t take his work too seriously – and perhaps in these sober times we’re in need of more artists like him.

INFORMATION

‘Where Is The Madness You Promised Me’ is on view until 23 June. For more information, visit the Tim Van Laere Gallery website

ADDRESS

Tim Van Laere Gallery
Verlatstraat 23
2000 Antwerp

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‘I didn’t realise it was meant to become so grand’, admits Athos Burez contentedly as he lays the finishing touches on the installations for his exhibition ‘Baroque Burez’, opened at Museum aan de Stroom (or, Museum by the River) in Antwerp. ‘First and foremost, I thought it was great to be given this much freedom with a subject.’

As part of the city festival ‘Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens inspires’, the photographer was commissioned by MAS to display the synergy between old and new forms of baroque. ‘There are so many types of baroque, it’s interesting to use elements from each’, says Burez. ‘I prefer the freshness and lightness of neo-baroque, Caravaggio’s intimate light and Rubens’ beautiful chaos.’

Famously, Antwerp is the city where Rubens painted The Descent from the Cross (1612–1614), a baroque landmark, which still hangs in the Cathedral of Our Lady. It’s also the city where he ran his prolific studio and where he collaborated with other great 17th-century baroque masters such as the expert animal painter Frans Snyders and Jan Brueghel the Elder.

Four hundred years later, Burez is one of the city’s contemporary creatives, yet one whose personal aesthetic leans towards the expressiveness of baroque. His photographic compositions often include dramatised scenes, symbolic storytelling and an intense play between colour, light and darkness. ‘People drew the parallel before, and I see the similarities in terms of my use of sets and the excessiveness of some of my work,’ allows Burez. 

The photographer looked towards classic baroque themes, such as historical painting, hunting scenes, the Wunderkammer and still lifes, for this exceptional large-scale exhibition, spread over the so-called Boulevard of the ten-storey MAS.

For the incredibly detailed fauna in Baroque Burez, he collaborated with the taxidermist Viktor Leestmans – the equivalent of Snyders to Burez’s compositions. Each scene – from his own version of The Descent from the Cross to his lavish set tables – are turned contemporary by adding humorous twists and modern objects, such as electrical heaters, Coca-Cola cans, graffiti and fluorescent lamps.

Shooting in historic locations such as the Antwerp Rockox House and the Brussels courthouse as well as contemporary buildings like the Antwerp Tower, which is currently being demolished, Burez creates atmospheric images that translate the spirit of baroque while capturing its relevance.

INFORMATION

‘Baroque Burez’ is on view at Museum aan de Stroom until 21 April 2019. For more information, visit the MAS website and the Visit Antwerp website

ADDRESS

Museum aan de Stroom
Hanzestedenplaats 1
2000 Antwerp

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Antwerp has never received the recognition it deserves. Home to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, ModeNatie and, of course, the Antwerp Six, Flanders’ capital of cool has long flown under the radar as a destination city.

That may well change with the opening of Hotel Pilar, which presents itself as a concept more than a hotel. Set amongst the scenic squares of Het Zuid, the historic 17-room corner building was transformed by the hotel’s owners, interior architect Sam Peeters and hotel manager Christophe Ysewyn, who, together with Peeters’ firm, Contekst Interior Architects, extensively renovated the three-storey structure. 

The result is a series of light-filled, high-ceilinged rooms outfitted with bespoke artwork, design objects and colourful bedspreads and cushions – the latter created by the owners. Smitten guests may purchase these, as well as the hotel’s ceramic tableware and custom furniture by Contekst, directly off the walls or from the in-house boutique, ensuring that the hotel has a consistently evolving aesthetic and identity, and giving substance to the owners’ oft-repeated mantra that Pilar is a ‘home away from home’.

Guests – and locals – seeking more immediate gratification will find the answer in the Pilar’s ground floor Foodbar. Between hearty breakfasts, a seasonal lunch and dinner menu, and coffee from Antwerp-based roasting house Caffenation, all tastes are catered for – impressive, in a city of tastemakers.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Leopold de Waelplaats 34

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With a compelling title ‘She Walks in Beauty’, the first retrospective of Belgian fashion designer Olivier Theyskens opened yesterday at MoMu, Antwerp, with the scenography designed by his close friend and fellow Belgian, the architect Glenn Sestig. ‘The exhibition is the very personal journey of a young Belgian designer with an “old spirit” on the brink of two centuries. This unique perspective allows us to unravel the designer’s artistic DNA on different stages. Theyskens’ trajectory between five brands over a period of 20 years also reads as a visual imprint of the evolutions of the fashion industry in the 21st century,’ says Karen Van Godtsenhoven, curator at the museum.

As soon as Theyskens received the invitation to stage a show, he called Sestig. His minimalist aesthetic and use of contrasting materials works beautifully with Theyskens’ sense of drama. ‘Because the clothes are so detailed, it’s best to have the pieces in a clear environment so you can really look at the quality,’ says Sestig, who orchestrated different environments to mark the passages of the designer’s career to date.  

The exhibition opens with a long hall showcasing Theyskens early work, including two dresses made for Madonna. ‘The space is dark and black, but the silhouettes are illuminated which creates a dramatic vision. We found a new type of mannequin made in smooth matte material and shaped in very natural poses, as if the girls are lining up before they go on the catwalk. It’s totally new on the market,’ says Sestig.

The hall segues into a striking black and white space with half ovals that stages his work for Rochas, including a selection in a cage of ropes resembling a birdcage that became a symbol of the house. Sestig balances out the monochrome play with an all-white room for Nina Ricci that captures the brand’s feminity. A small dizzying display of imagery marks the Theory years and the dynamism of New York, while Theyskens’ own label that he re-launched three seasons ago, is given a luminous space, showing off the couture level detail and ‘time travel’ aesthetic. The fulcrum is a vast skirted white wedding dress positioned on a set of stairs. Throughout there are backstage photographs from collaborator, Ali Mahdavi, in addition to sketches and videos on small television screens.

‘My woman has a little “goth and roll” spirit. I’m in love with women and in love with designing for them. It’s my everyday life,’ says Theyskens, who counts actors such as Felicity Jones, Diane Kruger, Greta Gerwig and Kirsten Dunst as fans. Sestig’s scenography makes for a nuanced, thoughtful set for Theyskens’ poetic body of work. ‘The Theyskens girl walks in beauty, like the woman who inspired Romantic poet Lord Byron,’ adds Van Godtsenhoven.

INFORMATION
‘She Walks in Beauty’ is on view until 3 March 2018. For more information, visit the MoMu website 

ADDRESS

MoMu
Nationalestraat 28
2000 Antwerp

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A vast new cultural complex is soon to open just outside of Antwerp. What started in 1857 as a red-brick malting distillery, has been transformed into Kanaal, an artistic, residential and commercial destination on the banks of the Albert canal.

The 55,000sq m site serves as the headquarters for the foundation of Axel Vervoordt, an art dealer, collector and interior designer. The Axel Vervoordt Company started buying up the site in 1998 and moved in to the warehouse-like spaces a year later.

The decade-long changes have been carried out by three local firms, Stéphane Beel, Coussée & Goris and Bogdan & Van Broeck.

Vervoordt’s youngest son Dick masterminded the creation of 98 apartments, 30 offices, an organic food market, public gardens, a fitness centre, auditorium and all-important 4,000sq m exhibition space. This houses Vervoordt’s personal collection built up over five decades.

Anish Kapoor, Tatsuo Miyajima, Marina Abramović and James Turrell have permanent installations there. The buildings containing spaces for the Axel & May Vervoordt Foundation and the Axel Vervoordt Gallery were the last to go up, and have been designed by Axel Vervoordt, with long-time collaborator, architect Tatsuro Miki. The two were also responsible for The Greenwich Hotel – TriBeCa Penthouse.

‘We tried to make all the added or modified parts as invisible as possible. Therefore, the highlight of the scheme is the industrial architectural heritage that was already there,’ says Miki.

He explains that in the past, the site was used as a malting complex, with silos for storing grain. ‘Now they are turned into storage for artworks, something more spiritual. But this utilitarian, original character of the complex had to stay. We just added new “containers for arts” designed in a simple way, but according to correct proportions, opening up the whole site to the unknown but dynamic future.’

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Axel Vervoodt Real Estate website

Richard Deacon’s first outdoor sculpture show, which opens this weekend in Antwerp, is long overdue. It’s been 30 years since the artist, one of the leading British sculptors of his generation, won the Turner Prize. But the circumstances of this show are somewhat novel, since it has its origins in a bold admission of failure.

In 1993 the Middelheim Museum, a wonderful city-based sculpture park with a historic collection ranging from Rodin to Ai Weiwei, bought one of Deacon’s biggest and most ambitious works. Never Mind was a beautiful giant balloon-like structure crafted out wood. Defying its weighty material properties, it appeared to expand outward and float over the earth like a ghost ship.

The sculpture decayed unexpectedly quickly, and the museum locked it out of site. ‘Nobody wanted to talk about it,’ says Middelheim Museum director Sara Weyns. However, the sad story of Never Mind became for Weyns a very important one. She began to see it as a brilliant way to address a bigger question that the contemporary art world is now facing: that of the unknowablity of the future of contemporary art. How will it survive and live on, given the new, untested materials and techniques that so many use?

Deacon’s answer has been to recreate the piece in stainless steel. A new work altogether, it lives on defiant, robust, purpose-built for the future – even futuristic in a spaceship kind of way.

What the exhibition stands for, with Never Mind at its heart, is not the sad ephemerality of beauty, but the pioneering human drive to improve, recreate, and adapt. And perhaps more importantly for Deacon, it highlights the risk his practice takes.

When talking about his work, it’s his willingness to embrace failure that gets him excited. ‘I love glazing clay,’ he says. ‘It’s the only way I like to paint, because you don’t have any idea what it’s going to look like. That’s extremely liberating.’

As one walks around the grounds of Middelheim, Deacon’s streak of risk becomes apparent in everything he does. It’s essential – because he wants to make the material perform in uncharacteristic, surprising ways.

Giant, fragile columns of ceramics have been assembled as if in free-fall, arranged in an off-balance way. Planks of wood have been twisted into ribbons that create a delicate cradle filled with light. They seem elastic – until you see how firmly fixed they are with metal framework at the sides.

‘Fluidity and fixedness are two sides of a rather interesting divide,’ says Deacon, ‘like being alive or dead.’ A love of risk must be united with a grounded respect for nuts and bolts realities of technique and process – as well as a true artist’s willingness to get it wrong.

INFORMATION

‘Richard Deacon: Some Time’ runs from 27 May – 24 September. For more information, visit the Middleheim Museum website

ADDRESS

Middelheimlaan 61
2020 Antwerp

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Belgian brand Valerie Objects has garnered acclaim for its exquisite pieces produced by designers, artists and architects. An off-shoot of Antwerp’s Valerie Traan gallery, it has presented works by the likes of Muller Van Severen, Koichi Futatsumata and Wieki Somers, while Octave Vandeweghe was recently shortlisted for a Wallpaper* Design Award. Its latest project, Robbrecht en Daem’s ‘Puppet Theatre’, takes a decidedly nostalgic turn.

Architect Paul Robbrecht’s fascination with puppets dates back to his childhood in Flanders. ‘Every week, a local family set up a puppet show in the tiny back-room of a café,’ he recalls. ‘It felt like a miniature theatre, I was utterly mesmerised.’ A few decades later, he has combined this attraction to the miniature theatre with his architectural experience, and created an installation which is part fairytale castle, part modernist fortress.

The theatre features elements that are recurring in the practice’s architecture: its shape references Robbrecht en Daem’s Market Hall in Ghent, designed in 2012 and inspired by the medieval architecture of the area. Another signature feature of the architect’s work is the strict measurement system of every design, based on numbers three, five and seven – something that Robbrecht applied to this piece as well.

Made of dark walnut and available in red and black, the ‘Puppet Theatre’ is both a decorative piece of furniture and an object imagined for children’s entertainment – so much so, that Robbrecht tested it on his grandchildren (who, he notes, ‘reacted quite positively’).

‘This theatre is similar to a box of wooden blocks,’ says Robbrecht; its design, he explains, takes its cues from mid-century toys, and is bolstered by the belief that sober and abstract forms enhance children’s sense of imagination.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Valerie Objects website

Appearing like simple line drawings that have sprung from the page, the bent steel tube sculptures of German artist Erika Hock possess almost life-like qualities. Arranged across Antwerp’s Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, each sculpture strikes a pose; while one stretches out a leg, another leans nonchalantly against a wall, each one interacting with the space in a different way.

The sculptures, which are being showcased at the gallery as part of Hock’s new solo exhibition ‘The Phantom Table’, are the latest works from the German artist’s ongoing ‘Elbows and Knees’ series - a body of work that blurs the line between functional objects and autonomous sculptures.

For inspiration for her ‘Elbows and Knees’ pieces, Hock looked to the slender frame and suspended seat of the Bauhaus cantilever chair; a concept that was developed in the 1920s. At the time, several architects including Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe were all working on designs for a chair without back legs and a form that would elegantly trace the line of the seated human body.

‘I have been interested in the cantilever chair for a while because of the way that its posture mimics the human body,’ explains the artist. ‘I think of a chair with four legs as being more of a support structure for the body. The cantilever chair not only supports the body but it becomes a body; so you can easily picture it standing up and stretching out.’

Each piece, powder coated in either a muted pink, canary yellow, black or white, takes the form of deconstructed item of furniture – a lamp, a chair and a coatrack – all placed directly on the gallery floor as if ready to be used. However, their use is ambiguous – the chair has no seat, the coatrack has no obvious rail, the lamp rises awkwardly from the floor – Hock has pushed the forms so far into the realms of sculpture that they cease to be functional.

‘These structures can be seen as investigations on functionality and abstractions of the human body and its curiosities,’ says Hock. ‘The varieties of human bodies and characteristics like noses, legs, eyes, etc are very interesting to me due to their non-translatability. We can only talk about diversities after thinking about conformity.’

INFORMATION

'Erika Hock: The Phantom Table' is on view until 18 February. For more information, visit the Gallery Sofie Van de Velde website

ADDRESS

Gallery Sofie Van de Velde
Lange Leemstraat
262 2018 Antwerp

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Antwerp’s Valerie Traan gallery presents a new collection of furniture by Belgian design couple Muller Van Severen. The series of furnishings was created by the pair for one of architectural practice OFFICE KGDVS's projects, part of the Solo Houses development near Valencia, Spain.

For the project, Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen have created a series of modular lounge seating based on a grid structure, made of metallic net in both grey and bright shades of red and green. The furniture pieces, say the designers, ‘look like a curled up mattress or a sheet of paper, waiting for someone to lie down.’ With these objects, the pair explain, they wanted to pay tribute to the openness of the house.

Structured like a circular loop, the villa features glass walls that allow viewers to peek into the forest outside, or into the inner courtyard and pond. The accompanying furniture celebrates these features, acting as micro-architectures that celebrate the transparency of the place. The collection is a variation on the design studio’s minimalist theme, which gets a makeover with new materials that give a completely novel look to their essential shapes. ‘The discovery of this new material,’ explain the designers, talking about the metal mesh which composes the objects ‘inspired us to establish a new world of landscapes and sculptures that also holds a place for colour. We love the idea that you can dress up our furniture with blankets or a sheepskin.’

INFORMATION

'Muller Van Severen: Studies for the Office KGDVS Solo House' is on display until 25 June. For more information, visit the gallery's website

ADDRESS

Valerie Traan Gallery
Reynderstraat 12
2000 Antwerp
Belgium

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For its 25th anniversary, the current owners of RAS – an acronym for Restaurant on the Stream – tasked local Antwerp agency Co.studio to refresh the interiors and maximise the connection to the waterfront.

Housed in a building erected in 1989 by architect Bob Van Reeth, the tall glass windows naturally prioritise the serene views over the river Scheldt, but the designers further optimised this, by removing the central bar and creating an uncluttered space, which they filled with teal Eero Saarinen chairs and elegant black glass tables, that smartly reflect the surface of the river.

Meanwhile, tempered lighting and walnut wood flooring, create and intimate atmosphere and soften the strong, architectural lines of the building. The simplicity of the concept extends to the kitchen, where seasonal and local produce define the classics from North Sea sole Meunière to entrecote from Western Flanders.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Ernest Van Dijckkaai 37

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The collected forms of cutlery are among human history's most essential tools. This idea manifests itself as an experimental topic for selected designers and artists presenting their flatware projects at the Antwerp-based gallery Valerie Traan.

Cutlery, with its distinctive sculptural sensibility, has always attracted designers. Even Bruno Munari, one of the greatest thinkers of modern design, dedicated one chapter of his book Design as Art to the philosophy, form and function of cutlery. Now, an international crowd of designers and artists, including David Bernstein, Octave Vandeweghe, Maarten Baas, Unfold, Koichi Futatsumata, Studio Wieki Somers and Muller Van Severen have given new life, new beauty and even new meaning to these simple extensions of our limbs.

The artists' varying creative philosophies resulted in several unique and unexpected objects: designer Maarten Baas presents sketchy, almost childlike cutlery in his typical contemporary style; while Koichi Futatsumata was inspired by shape of his favourite technical pen for the grip of his cutlery, rendered in the shape of hexagon. Both projects are the first works realised for the valerie_objects ‘To eat with’ cutlery collection.

More artistic approaches are seen in the work of the Maastricht-based American David Bernstein and the Belgian Octave Vandeweghe. While Bernstein connects cutlery to stories and uses myriad spatulas as starting points for his performance-based pieces, Vandeweghe uses precious gemstones to create facet-shaped tools resembling prehistorical objects or natural wonders. 'The combination of a gemstone with facets, a knife and cutlery combines notions like beauty and function,' he says. 'Beauty becomes function, and function becomes beauty.'

'When I approached the designers I knew that they would each use their expertise, background and knowledge to come up with a completely divergent range of results. But whatever stage they were at, they all succeeded in delivering a surprise,' says curator Veerle Wenes about the project, which will be also on show at Il Lazzaretto during next month's Salone del Mobile.

INFORMATION

'Objects & Subjects' is on view until 2 April. For more information, visit the Valerie Traan gallery's website

ADDRESS

Valerie Traan
Reyndersstraat 12
2000 Antwerp

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Flemish architect Christian Kieckens first opened his practice in Antwerp in 2001 and has since tackled a variety of commissions, spanning graphic art, books, stage, interiors and private building design. His diverse portfolio has secured his reputation as one of Belgium’s leading architecture practices. Works include from public buildings and urban design, to offices and houses. 

To celebrate Kieckens' achievements, the deSingel International Arts Campus in Antwerp has just launched a new exhibition, entitled ‘The House. The Mentor. The Archive.’ documenting the architect's journey.

'Architecture is to buildings what music is to sound,' says Kieckens, believing that building design is much more than just bricks and mortar. Throughout his career, Kieckens has made it his mission to blend image, theory, imagination and history in all his projects, at the same time striving to encapsulate a ‘visual simplicity’ in all his designs.  

The show is a retrospective revolving around the three dominating elements in Kieckens' career, 'the house, the mentor and the archive'. Kieckens explains, 'In a house, one seeks, imagines and builds. The mentor looks, writes and passes down. While the archive preserves, provides and remains aloof. The architect is not present at this point, what is shown is that which remains.’

This trilogy is also present in the composition of the exhibit. ‘The House’ is a space constructed from textiles. ‘The Mentor’ portion of the show focuses on the architect's continued role as a university lecturer, covering publications, collaborations on student projects and numerous invitations for guest professorship. 'The Archive’ is formed of a series of drawings from 1974-1995, followed by a curated selection from the period 1996-2015. This part of the show put the ‘focus on the transfer of knowledge in his design practice.’

The show aims to convey Kieckens' philosophy regarding unity and simplicity in design. 'Designing architecture in which every part is essential. Nothing more, but nothing less either,' reflects Kieckens. 

INFORMATION

’The House. The Mentor. The Archive.’ will run at the deSingel until 5 June 

For more information on Christian Kiecens please visit the website

ADDRESS

DeSingel
Desguinlei 25
2018 Antwerp 
Belgium

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The Bonapartedok in the Eilandje district of Antwerp, famous for the MAS maritime museum, is now flanked by a series of new restaurants and bustling bars. One of these is Festiv Bar next to its sister eatery Lux, both owned by restaurateur Peter Vanhulle who also recently launched the Catalan influenced dining room, Món.

The interior design by Belgian firm, AIDarchitecten pays tribute to Antwerp’s port and the surrounding water thanks to a wavy, wooden construction reminiscent of the inside of a ship’s hull. The sommelier serves 12 wines by the glass, from top-notch Barolos to lesser-known boutique labels. Patrons can order small bites from the Lux kitchen next door, made to match the bar’s extensive cocktail menu. From 11 in the morning, Festiv endeavours to create the perfect after-work or meeting vibe, especially from Thursday to Saturday, when a house-DJ sets the tone and Krug champagne is served by the coupe. 

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Sint-Aldegondiskaai 20

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When it comes to shoes, does the product prevail, or the emotion that brought it into existence? The exhibition Footprint: The Tracks of Shoes in Fashion, which opens today at Antwerp’s Fashion Museum (MoMu), gathers about 600 pairs of shoes from the 20th and 21st century, in order to map their imprint via the personalities that shaped them.

This angle took shape thanks to the collection of shoes that Belgian retail pioneers Geert Bruloot and his partner Eddy Michiels have amassed since opening their footwear boutique Coccodrillo in Antwerp in 1983 – an era when emotion ran high during fashion shows.

Complemented by loans from other museums, Footprint avoids a product-focused approach, thanks to its theme-based set up and attention to individual designers. 'Nowadays, everything has become a product,' Bruloot explains. 'There’s an it-bag, there’s an it-shoe, but the human aspect has got lost. We wanted to discover the person behind the shoe.' Under the artistic eye of Dodi Espinosa, a coherent concept and scenography was developed, complete with film shorts and imagery that provide an immersive backdrop.

In any other context it would be surprising to find shoes designed by Vivienne Westwood, Patrick Cox and Roger Vivier sharing an exhibition space with a work by Ai Weiwei, but Footprint pulls that off. The varied collection and the connections that are made between art, popular culture and history are testament to Bruloot’s love of showing others the things that fill him with enthusiasm, a trait that first led him to open his boutiques. (He and Michiels also founded Louis in 1986, where they were the first to sell the debut collections of Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester and other Antwerp designers.)

As he walks Wallpaper* through the exhibition, Bruloot raves about Tokio Kumagai, the late Japanese designer whose shoes with embroidered eye details can be found in the ‘Surrealism’ and ‘Pop’ sections. On the continent, Bruloot hugely respects the Italians for their matchless technique in creating the best lasts. 'But,' he continues, 'the Belgians have always been intellectual, the Italians glamourous, the French elegant. There’s a variety of reasons why designer makes an impact. Ann Demeulemeester’s footwear was strong and interesting from the very start. It’s a gift. Some have it and some don’t.'

Benoît Méléard, an experimental French shoe designer that many look to for inspiration is honoured with a separate focus, as is Pierre Hardy with his strong graphic designs and Thierry Mugler, whose architectural shoes made waves in the 1980s. Innovative constructions are highlighted in a Balenciaga Lego heel, but also in Dirk Bikkemberg’s famous thick-soled boots with holed heels, through which laces are drawn. Simone Rocha and Tabitha Simmons represent modern glamour and elegance.

Jan Jansen, a Dutch designer who in the Sixties worked anonymously for Christian Dior and Charles Jourdan will be a surprise discovery for many, as will the atypical designs of Azzedine Alaïa and Manolo Blahnik – not their usual stiletto heels but chunky wedges and cowhide ankle boots.

Footprint shows shoe design on and off the beaten tracks. 'I’m sure some people will be quick to ask, "but can you walk in these?"' smiles Bruloot, pointing to the fetish pumps and stiletto ballerina’s Manolo Blahnik created for David Lynch. 'But that’s not the point. This is not an exhibition about the comfortable shoe. It’s about creativity and it’s about an experience.'

ADDRESS

MoMu
Nationalestraat 28, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium

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Belgium’s Ellis Gourmet Burger is quickly establishing itself as a place where patrons can expect more than sloppy fast food. Following on from two successful branches in Brussels and the Flanders seaside resort of Knokke, the third outpost can be found along the old docks in Antwerp in the up-an-coming area of Het Eilandje. On the menu is a mix of classic gourmet burgers, healthy veggie burgers and signature and tribute burgers, such as a delicate cheeseburger created in collaboration with Van Tricht and sons, the world-renowned Belgian cheesemonger. All are served with high-quality side dishes and a fine drinks menu offering a proper selection of Belgian beers. The décor is urban eclectic and the red-brick walls are hung with prints referencing Antwerp’s maritime past and the famous Red Star Line. For summer days, there's a sunny terrace with views over the docks and the striking new MAS museum.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Sint-Aldegondiskaai 52-54
2000 Antwerp
Belgium

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Michelin-starred chef Sergio Herman is best known for his cooking at the legendary restaurant Oud Sluis in the Netherlands, but now his new Antwerp eatery, The Jane, is creating waves. Herman has teamed up with fellow chef Nick Bril to set up shop in the cavernous chapel of a former military hospital. Created by celebrated Dutch design outfit Piet Boon, the sleek interiors make the most of the building's original features. Muted greens, golds and blacks complement dramatic stained-glass windows designed by Studio Job, whose practice is based in the city, while an 800kg chandelier by Beirut-based PSLAB (W*176) takes centre stage. The menu features dishes such as mackerel ceviche and squid, chorizo and white beans. According to Herman and Bril, food is their religion; fitting, considering that at Jane, the kitchen is located where the altar once stood.

ADDRESS

1 Paradeplein
Antwerpen
Belgium

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Antwerp's reputation for creative fertility was developed by the likes of Eddy Jambers, who was dealing in vintage design back when Dries Van Noten was still a nipper. Back in the 1990s, Jambers rented this former hostel, squatting upstairs with friends while running a gallery downstairs with the performance artist Ludo Mich. It was only five years ago that he was able to buy the townhouse and renovate, fixing to the roof one of his more extraordinary finds: an old barge wheelhouse, which now provides views over the River Scheldt. Jambers named the new ground-floor gallery (pictured) CMB58 or Compagnie Magnifek Belge, which needs no translation. These days, Jambers lives on the second floor but rents out the first and third floors, which are outfitted in flamboyant midcentury collectibles (offers welcome) and local art that prompts the odd double take. A horse's head mounted over the balustrade was once attached to a beloved champion racer, a silver-suited astronaut was an old prop of Ludo Mich's, and a seven-foot-tall, fame-red figure is a 1997 work by Jambers' brother, Mark Jambers.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Volkstraat 58
Antwerp
Belgium

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It's fairly common for visitors to Graanmarkt 13, Antwerp's most chic shopping and dining destination, to talk about how they want to move in. That was, after all, the original intention of husband-and-wife owners Tim Van Geloven and Ilse Cornelissens when they first opened their townhouse-of-wonders in 2010, a place 'where everyone would feel at home'. The good news is, now they can. The pair - who until now have been living on the top two floors of the traditional building - have moved out, and have launched the space as a striking rentable apartment.

Graanmarkt 13 is located in the middle of the city, on a pretty cobbled square lined with tall trees. From the outside it's another neo-classical residence, with no shop windows or restaurant signs to speak of. It's only when entering that you discover the poured concrete stairwell and stunning interior architecture by Belgium's starriest architect Vincent Van Duysen.

At the back of a building there's an old ginkgo tree overlooking a rooftop garden and beehives, providing herbs and honey that the award-winning chef Seppe Nobels uses in his dishes in the restaurant, which is located in the basement. On the ground floor is the concept store, selling fashion and accessories sourced by Cornelissens and Van Geloven on their travels around the world, alongside covetable designs such as homewares by Michaël Verheyden and notebooks by Astier de Villatte.

The duo have always had the intention to add an apartment to this mix, though few people knew about it until now. 'It's been a well-kept secret,' says Cornelissens. Now that the project has proved successful, and their children have grown, the time was right to make the move.

With four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a living and dining room and fully equipped kitchen, the duplex apartment is homely and very sophisticated, a showcase for Van Duysen's signature brutalist style, but also for the city, with its panoramic windows and vast terrace with treetop views. 'I look to achieve sensibility of working harmoniously in merging and combining volumes,' explains Van Duysen. 'It's about creating warmth, atmosphere and beauty through a careful attention to the inherent qualities in materials and how they sit, both with one another and in the space itself.'

The Apartment has not been redesigned since Cornelissens and Van Geloven's departure. 'We just packed our bags and kids' toys and left it as we knew how well it worked,' explains Cornelissens. 'Living on top of everything was great and allowed us to give the whole project the personal touch we always wanted for it. Now people can really stay here and experience the creativity, calmness and beautiful design of Vincent Van Duysen at his best.'

So can we expect to see their Midas touch elsewhere in Antwerp or around the rest of the world? 'We will never create a new Graanmarkt 13 on another spot, you can only create such a personal place once. But we are always open for new ideas and new addresses,' says Cornelissens. 'We already opened a little shoe shop just around the corner. The look and feel is very similar, but it is just a new address.'

ADDRESS

The Apartment
Graanmarkt 13
2000 Antwerpen
Belgium

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Insights from Ishigami and a video tour of the exhibition

Japanese architect Junya Ishigami has built a miniature landscape at DeSingel International Arts Campus in Antwerp. The former SANAA employee - who set up his fast-emerging practice in 2004 - has sited over fifty of his architecture models on a series of long tables inside the Campus, giving visitors a intimate overview of his varied oeuvre.

The exhibition - purplexingly titled 'How Small? How Vast? How Architecture Grows' - offers up everything from small-scale proposals to realised work and even utopian landscapes. Originally conceived for the Shiseido Gallery in Japan, the show has been adapted for the modernist halls of DeSingel (designed by Belgian architect Léon Stynen), with this marking the first time Ishigami's dainty models have been shown in Europe. The minimalist display is representative of the architect's exploration of the subtlety of the natural elements (he's often referencing water, air, clouds and wind in his work) and is a fitting addition to his growing portfolio of delicate and thoughtful presentations. 'Ishigami has a boundless urge to create a new kind of architecture,' says the exhibition's curator Katrien Vandermarliere. 'It's an architecture which absorbs all that is familiar and turns it on its head.' Ishigami drew the architecture world's attention with his concept for the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale Japanese Pavilion; he notably won the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale's Golden Lion for best project; and he has a growing number of installations in key institutes, such as the Barbican in London, already under his belt. Other Ishigama hits include the KAIT studio for the Kanagawa Institute of Technology and the Yoji Yamamoto store in New York. Together these make him one of Japan's fastest rising architectural talents.

ADDRESS

DeSingel International Arts Campus
Desguinlei 25
B-2018 Antwerp

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'It's absolutely not a white cube,' says Belgian architect Paul Robbrecht about the new pavilion his Ghent-based practice Robbrecht and Daem (also responsible for the renovation and extension of London's Whitechapel Gallery) has designed for the Middelheim open-air sculpture museum in Antwerp. Pointing out the exposed columns and 'knots' where the beams have been welded into the green steel structure, he adds: 'What we really wanted to do was make a building that shows how it is built, that shows the tectonics of construction.'

Het Huis (house or home in Dutch) has been purposely laid out at diagonal angles to the straight paths of the formal gardens it was built in so that it looks 'woven into the surrounding landscape'. This is a theme Robbrecht refers to repeatedly, revealing that one of his greatest sources of inspiration was 19th century German architect and art historian Gottfried Semper's notions of the 'textile origins of building'.

The brief for the semi-open structure was straightforward. 'It was for a pavilion that would have real contact with nature, with the landscape around it, a place where smaller or fragile works of art could be shown, or works that needed a more framed setting,' says Robbrecht. The colourful but unsettling glossy ceramic heads and urns of German artist Thomas Schütte displayed here were created especially for the pavilion's inauguration and contrast ingeniously with the smooth concrete floors, geometric lines and angles of the roof and the special 'topography' of the ceiling, which 'looks as if it's moving'.

The pavilion represents nature in architecture, says Robbrecht. Two trees have been planted at opposite ends of the space and steel lattice-patterned screens (which can be pulled across the four openings to close the pavilion at night) create extraordinary dappled effects as if light is coming through the branches of a tree. 'You could almost think it's a roof of leaves above you,' Robbrect says excitedly.

After touring the 200-plus sculptures (including new site-specific works by Ai Weiwei, Philippe Van Snick and Roman Signer) in the freshly extended 75-acre park and revamped museum, visitors will find Robbrecht and Daem's angular steel-and-concrete 'house' a place of extraordinary peace, intimacy and poetry.

ADDRESS

Middelheim Museum
Middelheimlaan 61
2020 Antwerp

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