Antwerp, through the 1 Granary archive
A small archive digest, revisiting the conversations we published on the Antwerp Six and the wider creative world around them.
Antwerp is in the air again. MoMu has just opened a new exhibition on the Antwerp Six, and with it comes the usual return of those names – the canon, the mythology, the shorthand. But Antwerp was never only interesting because of six designers, however influential they were. It was a scene, a school, a shop, a set of relationships, a way of thinking.
1 Granary started as a publication run by students at Central Saint Martins back in 2012. But a few years in, we began casting the net wider, looking more closely at the work coming out of places like Parsons, the Royal College of Art and the Royal Academy of Antwerp – schools that, to us, felt like pinnacles, each with their own standards, mythology and creative identity. Antwerp in particular kept drawing us in. To write about it properly, it didn’t feel enough to simply repeat the familiar story of the Antwerp Six. We wanted to understand the history more deeply: not just who they were, but what they changed, who came after them, and what kind of legacy they created.
So in 2015, we spent a couple of weeks in Antwerp trying to get closer to that world. We spoke to people who helped shape it from different angles: Geert Bruloot, Ronald Stoops, Walter van Beirendonck, Linda Loppa and Kaat Debo among others. Alongside those pieces, there are later interviews too – with Marina Yee, Jenny Meirens and Dries Van Noten – that speak to the same wider story through questions of independence, authorship, commerce, education and longevity.
Yes, they are bits of fashion history, but they still say something about what it takes for a creative scene to form, and what happens when it’s held together by more than ambition alone. So rather than trying to add another take on the exhibition, it felt better to go back to our own archive. These are some of the pieces we published after that time in Antwerp, plus a few others that belong in the same constellation. Not just the Antwerp Six, then, but some of the people and institutions that made Antwerp Antwerp.
1. Geert Bruloot – putting the Antwerp Six together
A conversation with the store owner and image-maker who helped bring the Antwerp Six into the world, and whose perspective opens up a wider story about collaboration, timing and the particular conditions that made Antwerp possible.
2. Marina Yee – the quiet one speaks
A rare interview with one of the most elusive members of the Antwerp Six, reflecting on the group’s legacy, her own path through fashion, and the tension between visibility and remaining true to yourself.
3. Ronald Stoops – documenting Antwerp’s greatest
A look at the photographer who documented generations of Belgian fashion, offering a different way into Antwerp’s story – not through design alone, but through the image-making that helped define it.
4. Walter van Beirendonck – the Academy from the inside
An interview with one of Antwerp’s most influential teachers and designers, tracing his approach to education, creativity and the distinct culture that grew around the Royal Academy.
5. Jenny Meirens – business, strategy, and the Antwerp orbit
A conversation with the co-founder of Maison Martin Margiela, whose clarity on independence and authorship remains one of the sharpest counterpoints to fashion’s more conventional success stories.
6. Linda Loppa – the educator who built the conditions
One of fashion education’s most important figures on what it means to build an environment where designers can really develop – and why good teaching is about far more than producing industry-ready graduates.
7. Kaat Debo – MoMu, archives, and how fashion history gets held
A conversation with the longtime MoMu director about Antwerp’s fashion history, and the role the museum has played in shaping how that history is understood, preserved and presented.
8. Dries Van Noten – longevity, structure, and independence
An interview with Dries Van Noten on building a lasting business and maintaining a clear sense of self in an industry that so often pushes designers away from their original instincts.
i adoreee antwerp, been there a few times and cant wait to go back, will be checking out all of these links:))