Becoming Antwerp: Resisting the Normative through Fashion

‘Fashion’ and ‘Belgium’ were not always considered synonyms. Butin contemporary discourse surrounding fashion, Belgian fashion hasbecome a widely known concept imbued with specific meanings. Indeed,starting from the late 1980s, the so-called ‘Antwerp Six’ putBelgian fashion in the spotlight with a new way of conceiving fashionin its relationship with body and identity. A conceptual approach thathas defined the city of Antwerp, inspiring more than three generationsof professionals, including designers, stylists, photographers andmake-up artists that set the rules inside the fashion world, providingnew standards and pushing aesthetic boundaries. Consequently, theaim of this essay is to retrace the history of this relatively new sceneand to point out its evolution from a mostly invisible local scene to aworldwide know fashion city, still continuing to influence the fashionsystem today.