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Anke Loh started her own line after graduating from the Academy. Her designs explore the symbiosis of design and technological innovation, which she researches through diverse projects and collaborations. She has designed costumes for choreographic works by Arco Renz, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and others. She has also taught at the Fashion Academy in Ghent. In 2005, she was invited to give a lecture at the Fashion Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was immediately hired as a teacher. In 2013, she was awarded her professorship. Her investigation of wearable technology has been further developed in collaboration with science faculties and such companies as Philips and Luminex.

Silhouettes by Tim Van Steenbergen and Kris Van Assche, at the Pass, 1998. By January, the students are expected to have the collection planned out, with five complete silhouettes ready to display at the ‘Pass’ (fitting) alongside their sketches and scrapbooks. The Pass can be an overwhelmingly stressful event; a midpoint in the passage of each academic year when students must present their work, inspiration and ideas to more than a dozen professors of the Academy, all arranged Last Supper-style at a long table. Criticism given at the Pass is forthright — students are picked up for failing to fully translate their ideas into garments, for poor technique, for failing to meet deadlines and even for a lack of passion and integrity. Consequently, gossip abounds among the alumni, brimming with horror stories past and present. The Pass is a very distinctive part of the Academy education. While its principle function is to assess students’ progress midway through the year, it also ensures that graduates can present themselves and their ideas in a clear and sophisticated manner.

Martin Margiela autumn—winter 1999. The nightmare of the earth’s atmosphere in danger became a reality at the end of the twentieth century. As a result, clothes whose function was to protect the body came back into the spotlight once again. Margiela used bed blankets filled with down as fabric for a coat. By putting the cover over it, it can be worn even in rainy weather, and is guaranteed to be warm and lightweight.

Jurgi Persoons spring—summer 1997. Heel-only shoe in wood and patent leather. The heel is a reproduction of a 1950s sandal.

Make-up by Peter Philips and Rudi Cremers. Styling by Olivier Rizzo. Photography by Willy Vanderperre. (For Sputnik). Clothes by Raf Simons.   Trained as a hairdresser, Rudi Cremers got drawn into fashion when doing the make-up for a test shoot. His career as a visagist for model agencies took off from there. That was in 1988.  He creates the make-up for Ann Demeulemeester’s shows — they’ve been a very loyal combination for years — and regularly joins up with make-up teams for shows and photo-sessions of other Belgian designers. Different from Inge Grognard’s dramatic, avant-garde look, which is her trademark, Cremers is known for both his natural and more glamorous ‘movie-star’ approach. Cremers has not ventured much on the international scene. He is of the faithful type, and, apart from the ‘timidity’ of its magazines, he claims that Belgium is the perfect country to live and work in.

But there are moments of magic. Many people will agree with me when I mention the three A.F. Vandevorst shows, in 1998 and 1999. Knowing these were their first presentations, we were more than amazed; I felt healed, saved, rescued.

The only detail that makes it easy for the cognoscenti to identify a top immediately as a Wim Neels design is the label sewn on the outside; rather than conveying the name of a posh fashion house, it states matter-of-factly what the garment is: Blouson. Caban. Cache-Poussière.

Anna Heylen autumn—winter 2002—03. 

Walter Van Beirendonck spring—summer 1988.   The summer collection ‘88 Un Autre Monde (another world) endeavours to merge visions from greatly differing worlds. The world and visions of Jules Verne (high-tech visions from the year 1870), the world of the African Massai, Nuba and Wodaabe tribes, whose way of life is still primitive, closely earth-linked and basic, but which posses a rich culture and fantastic body ornaments. Reminiscent of the Flinstone family (Pebbles, Bam Bam and Dino), of submarines and uniforms, impressions from “Blue Velvet” and “Angel heart”, prehistoric figures and even inspiration from Sado, Walter’s dog, have lent the collection the necessary essence of humour and fun, it’s aggression and strength. Clothing for active, strong and 'fantastic’ people, who have an interest in the past, but are already living in the future. The silhouettes are nicely rounded off and inspired by helmet-wearing divers, together with a touch of folklore. The outsides of the models feature various details that are sometime subtle, sometimes aggressive. Navels, buttocks and sex are accentuated; there are even rubber nipples on some items. Hand-knitted pullovers and cardigans feature check patterns and stripes, dogs and bones, African armbands and necklaces and body paintings. Prehistoric creatures, “safe-sex-bones" and figures from 2001 are featured in sweatshirts, t-shirts and trousers. Black, shiny straw hats, bones in the hair, T.Rex.-and Bam Bam caps. Diver’s and pilot’s goggles, telescopes and cameras inspire spectacles. Basic colours, shades of red, blue and green mixed with beige, off-white, green, navy, blue and black. Fabrics feature Vichy checks and square patterns. Cotton gabardine trousers, cool wool, Swiss cotton, crepe, silk, leather and rough, checked, elasticised folklore-look are all featured.

Bruno Pieters (Royal Academy for Fine Arts, Antwerp) graduated in 1999 with the collection PROJECT π1. (Photo: study of one garment, ‘Printed top’. Make up: skin disease). From the catalogue Academy show 1999: Concept: (Step 1) Eliminating the ‘total look’: leaving behind the idea to combine different pieces into a formal/normal silhouette — getting rid of the dogma of the matching outfit, be it in colour, form or fabric. (Step 2) Considering a different approach: devising another way of looking at one’s wardrobe and its functions/meaning. (Step 3) Focusing on one particular/singular item (at random): for this collection the emphasis is on the skirt — a presentation of varying shapes and forms of this particular garment. (Step 4) Creating the ideal backdrop for the subject: within this collection, the skirt is essential; the other garments of the silhouette function as a surrounding for this central piece. The interaction between these two poles creates a certain tension. (Step 5) Not giving everything away at first sight: in order to accentuate this leftfield approach, all 12 silhouettes will at first be veiled and hidden away under identical black amorphous covers made of mohair, creating accidental forms in the process. When lifted, these covers reveal what has been kept from sight.

In twenty years’ time people will be able to see that my clothes were made in 1999, and they will probably be very difficult to wear.  

Olivier Theyskens: Each bit of skin has an impact. Just sketching a neckline in a certain way is enough to give another sensation, another impression. The functional parts of our body are the hands and the head, that’s what most often tends to be exposed; and when you expose another part, you show something that isn’t essential for the function. You’re bang in the middle of the whole question of taboos, and so on. It’s always difficult to expose a mouth when you have just eaten something, for example. My desire is above all to make girls beautiful. To make them sexy is not my aim. Francine Pairon: The relation to prohibitions … you can’t get around it … The same hold for the register of seduction, sex… The clothed or naked body, covered/uncovered, OK … but the soul? The Japanese have a way of clothing bodies so as to nourish the soul.

Florence Müller: The performance/installation that Martin Margiela created at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels in 1995, one of the first exhibitions devoted to art and fashion, was very impressive. With a band of masked, non-professional models parading on a carpet of confetti throughout the opening evening, which was filmed and displayed in the exhibition space afterward as a “trace” of the event, he produced a spectacular effect with a minimum of financial outlay.

Florence Müller: The performance/installation that Martin Margiela created at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels in 1995, one of the first exhibitions devoted to art and fashion, was very impressive. With a band of masked, non-professional models parading on a carpet of confetti throughout the opening evening, which was filmed and displayed in the exhibition space afterward as a “trace” of the event, he produced a spectacular effect with a minimum of financial outlay.

Dirk Van Saene approaches fashion ‘ad hoc’, adhering closely to its essence: couture. Moreover, he works with a drive that shrugs aside any intellectuel or ‘mythical’ approach. Should there be any imagery or dialectic in his collections, it will invariably be ironic or qualifying. At his first show in Paris for Winter 1990-1991, his staff wore T-shirt bearing his name, misspelt in different ways.

Olivier Theyskens: Each bit of skin has an impact. Just sketching a neckline in a certain way is enough to give another sensation, another impression. The functional parts of our body are the hands and the head, that’s what most often tends to be exposed; and when you expose another part, you show something that isn’t essential for the function. You’re bang in the middle of the whole question of taboos, and so on. It’s always difficult to expose a mouth when you have just eaten something, for example. My desire is above all to make girls beautiful. To make them sexy is not my aim. Francine Pairon: The relation to prohibitions … you can’t get around it … The same hold for the register of seduction, sex… The clothed or naked body, covered/uncovered, OK … but the soul? The Japanese have a way of clothing bodies so as to nourish the soul.