The Royal Academy of Fine Arts – Fashion department

#MASTERING 2017
We’ve heard it through the grapevine: 2017 is an exceptional year for the Antwerp Fashion Academy and for Walter Van Beirendonck, its head of the fashion department. 18 international graduates show their strong personalities and their creative end-of-year collections. Les Petits Belges took a closer look at the four Belgians amongst them.

NASTASIA FINE – FeMmE EnFaNt, ObJeT AmOuR
The name of my collection means ‘Child Woman, Love Object’, because dolls are my main inspiration. To me, they perfectly represent the spirit of a woman who has a body like a child but can also be very sexual.

PHOTOGRAPHY RONALD STOOPS

EDUARD BOTH – DIE NATUR DER DINGE
During the transition from 2015 to 2016, I realized that I really like creating knitwear. Now, I feel that I decided too quickly that that was what I wanted to specialize in, turning my back to other possibilities. The most important lesson I have learned is that you always need to keep exploring the unknown. You need to keep searching.

PHOTOGRAPHY RONALD STOOPS

SOFIE NIEUWBORG – MASTERING
I have learned not to see the collection as something I am making for school, but as a form of therapy. I have a number of questions and I use school to find the answers That is how I have transformed events in my personal life into prints or symbols or drawings.

PHOTOGRAPHY PIERRE DEBUSSCHERE

SANDER BOS – DAMES
In fashion, everything comes alive. Your work goes out into the world and someone happens to see it. If they buy one of my pieces and then a piece by someone else, the way they combine them makes it their own. I love that interaction.

PHOTOGRAPHY RONALD STOOPS

INFO ROYAL ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS ANTWERP – FASHION DEPARTMENT
WORDS DOMINIQUE NZEYIMANA & KNOTORYUS
ANTWERP-FASHION.BE