The Antwerp Six on Display at Momu

In the narrative of contemporary fashion, few chapters are as impactful as the one written by the Antwerp Six. Forty years after their debut in 1986, the exhibition organized by the MoMu (Mode Museum) in Antwerp and curated by Romi Romy Cockx and Geert Bruloot retraces the trajectory of the six designers now known worldwide: Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene and Marina Yee.

The major exhibition, one of the most anticipated events for both fashion lovers and industry insiders, reconstructs not only six individual careers but above all the collective energy that transformed Antwerp into a global fashion epicenter. A story that was, above all, a friendship fueled by shared ambitions, travels, music, and a vision of fashion as a cultural language, far beyond the mere production of garments.

At the opening, not only the designers were present – from Ann Demeulemeester and her husband Patrick Robyn, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten – but also Raf Simons and Pieter Mulier, along with set designer Etienne Russo, photographer Willy Vanderperre, Linda Loppa who played a crucial role in supporting these two generations of creatives, and journalists such as Hamish Bowles, Suzy Menkes, and Diane Pernet.

The starting point is the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where in the 1960s a teaching method still rooted in Parisian elegance took shape, yet immersed in a context of profound cultural transformations. Amid student protests, countercultures, and new expressive freedoms, the ground was set for a generation destined to disrupt conventions.

While at first the distance between fashion and the visual arts seemed marked, it was precisely within this fracture that a fertile tension emerged: one between academic discipline and experimental impulse. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Antwerp became an informal laboratory where punk, performance, and visual arts intertwined. Independent spaces, clubs, and underground initiatives built a creative ecosystem that deeply influenced Academy students.

It is within this context that the bond between the future Antwerp Six solidified, also thanks to their shared friendship with Geert Bruloot, guest curator and co-founder of Coccodrillo, and of Louis, the first clothing store to sell Belgian designers’ work. It was through his intuition that the idea emerged to export the six designers abroad, presenting their collections in London.

Kaat Debo, director of MoMu, stated:

«The Antwerp Six are often described as a myth or a label, but rarely analyzed in their full complexity. […] They were not only six extraordinary talents, they were also the product of an environment. It is a dimension we risk forgetting today, as contemporary fashion tends to personalize everything, turning every story into an individual biography. […] And this is also relevant to the present, because new generations still need fertile contexts in which to grow and develop their potential».