Archive: Kaat Debo on Dries, digital, and how museums are changing for good
Originally published in August 2015.
By Jorinde Croese
Kaat Debo is the head of MoMu, that being the deceptively simple shorthand for the Mode Museum in Antwerp. But there’s nothing simple about the city host to Belgium’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, or its history– we’re talking home to original Avant-Gardes, The Antwerp Six. It was one of the movement’s founding members that was the subject of a recent MoMu retrospective, one described by The New York Times as ‘exceptional’ in both ‘power’ and scope. Dries van Noten: Inspirations, was a rare example of the collaborative capabilities afforded to designers and educational institutions. Needless to say, it was a hit, and one of the many projects in which Debo plays an instrumental part. She sits in her glass-fronted office on a warm Spring day, in eye and ear-shot of fellow staff (more evidence that Debo is emphatic of collaboration). When we meet, Debo has a slight cold, and speaks in an accent not-quite Flemish, not quite Belgian or French…
Kaat studied literature and philosophy, and ended up doing a PhD after her master’s degree; working on contemporary dance within a department of theatre studies. After two years, she quit, as she realised that pure research was not her cup of tea. “It was a bit too lonely for me,” she says. “I do research within my job, but enjoy it when it’s not my only focus.”
Even though Kaat was not formally trained in fashion, she ended up applying for the position of fashion curator just before the MoMu opened in the early 00’s. Linda Loppa — who was the director of Antwerp’s Fashion Department at the time and had a vast experience in both design and running stores — was one of its co-founders, and directed the museum. “We were a perfect match, as we were two inexperienced people, but still had a good knowledge. We were experimenting with the fashion museum, trying to find advantages and disadvantages, and had the freedom to do it in our own way. The hardest thing is to display fashion, because clothes must be worn. It’s really hard to maintain dynamics and energy in an exhibition. Also I think that the digital world opens up many opportunities for fashion to be transmitted,” she says, as we roll into the conversation.
“THERE’S NO HANDBOOK OF HOW TO COLLECT. SOMEHOW YOU TRY TO MAINTAIN OBJECTIVE CRITERIA TO DECIDE WHY A LOOK IS INTERESTING OR RELEVANT.”
The fashion industry has accelerated in the past few years— do you notice this change while working in a museum?
Museums, in their essence, work with a completely different rhythm than the fashion world, but I think that’s also the luxury that museums have. I think one of our main tasks is to offer a place for reflection and analysis, and to offer people a space where they can take time to look at a garment and discover the story behind it.
Making exhibitions is one thing, showing objects is another thing, and now you have — since about 15-20 years — the emergence of fashion film, which is a completely new medium. How do you approach that as a museum? How do you integrate that within your projects? Another challenge is how to collect fashion: when you look at our historic collection, it’s more of a reflection of how people dressed in Antwerp in the 18th or 19th century. It’s different when you look at our contemporary collection: it’s not a reflection of how people are dressed nowadays, because fashion changed drastically. There are different segments: we have haute couture, pret-a-porter since the 70s, and high street fashion. How to collect all the different types of fashion? We, as a museum, made a very conscious choice to collect designer fashion. It’s a choice that limits us, because in a hundred years time, someone won’t be able to tell (when seeing our collection) how people dressed in Antwerp. Of course you can document street fashion, maybe through imagery or video, but how to document everything that appears online?