ANTWERP: MAYBE THERE IS A GOD
The Mode Natie, at the corner of Antwerp’s Nationalestraat and Drukkerijstraat, is the creative fashion heart of the city. The MoMu Fashion Museum, the Fashion Academy and the Flanders Fashion Institute have all set up base here. The interior is stripped-down, minimal, all very skeletal and austere. Perhaps more Yohji than Yamamoto himself.
The Antwerp fashion scene is clustered in and around Nationalestraat and serves as a source of inspiration for the entire neighbourhood. Antwerp is known worldwide for designers such as Raf Simons, Ann Demeulemeester and Martin Margiela – all of whom graduated from the Antwerp Academy of Arts.
If it’s shopping you want to do, check out LOUIS on Lombardenstraat, STEPHAN SCHNEIDER on Reyndersstraat, LABELS INC on Aalmoezenierstraat or even the somewhat hilarious FISH AND CHIPS on Kammenstraat.
As a working environment for the students it is very intimate, intense. Anybody sitting in the entrance area of this building will see the next generation of designers floating by with their dreams, as reflected in many of the daytime pictures seen here in FUSED.
Beautiful girls on bikes, beautiful boys with bobs. And Fanklub.
Pascal Heeren may look like a reserved 19-year-old but he’s a wondrous 27. Together with Erwin ten Ham (another who looks a full ten years younger than he is), Olivia Alders and Jan Konings, Pascal runs a monthly club night in Antwerp named Fanklub.
Pascal, originally from St. Willebrord in Holland, has been living for the last three years in Antwerp with friend Erwin, 29, originally from Ede in Holland. “I worked for five years as an interiors architect. I felt agitated with the commercial side of that so I quit,” says Pascal, who now studies a course entitled ‘In-situ 3′ which sees him creating a wide range of work beyond the usual confines of art courses. “I started the club with Rentboy. Starting the club was a necessity for us. It was all about filling a gap in terms of music and grouping people. For me a great party is all about functioning on a similar wavelength of creativity. There are no club nights similar to ours. We don’t normally allow photographers.”
The club has indeed filled a gap. Finally Antwerp’s fashion crowd has a hot spot. Not gay, not straight, it’s a monthly night that is the pride of Belgium. “I wouldn’t want to say our night is about fashion or being fashionable, it’s just a place for people to be themselves.”
DJ Adam Sky has played twice, as has Niyi of Gauche Chic, Crazy Girl, Lo-Fi-Funk, Dubrowha International and designer Kim Jones. “The music we play is eclectic, electronic. From a hint of Hi-N-RG to Italo disco and electro-rock remixes. Lots of synthesizers. I don’t see myself as a DJ at all. I just want to hear music that I like.
“We wouldn’t have created Fanklub had we not felt like outsiders at all the other clubs in Antwerp. I certainly don’t DJ to entertain the masses, getting them all up on the floor bouncing. We don’t have a dress code at Fanklub. We’ve never refused admission, except to a group of drunken Polish people.”
Fanklub people reject logos, all that branding. “People think that Antwerp’s the mecca of design, but it’s not,” Pascal says with a laugh.
Paul Hartnett [2008]
