In 2001 Walter took on and curated an immense project called 2001 Mode Landed. The exhibition represented three themes: Emotions, Radicals and Mutilate. Walter chose these three themes for the exhibition based on his instincts. “Emotions" was a series of hundreds of people talking facing the camera about their emotional fashion experiences. "Radicals" included images from fashion designers Bless, Hussein Chalayan, Susan Cianciolo, Comme Des Garcons, Marjan Pejoski, Jurgi Persoons, Carol Chistian Poell and Raf Simons among others including Walter Van Beirendonck and Dirk Van Saens. The exhibit "Two Women" contrasted the impact that Rei Kawakubo and Gabrielle Chanel had, or should we say have, on fashion. "Mutilate" used confrontations, constructions, transformations, body art, fascination, avatars and contemporary fashion as forms of expression. The exhibition took over the entire city of Antwerp placing a huge red A on top of the KBC building.

Walter is a multidisciplinary being, in addition to his exhibitions, books and signature collections he has been an inspired instructor and has been guiding his students in the direction of self-discovery for the past 23 years at the Royal Academy of Antwerp where he once was a student in that famous class of the Antwerp 6. In January 2007 Walter will become the head of the Royal Academy's fashion department.

One of Walter's recent projects is a collection of children's wear, ZulupaPUWA, that is made and distributed in Belgium to over 60 shops. Walter, with his life partner, the designer Dirk Van Saene, created one of Antwerp's most innovative shops, Walterstore. In addition, Walter is creative director of Belgian label Scapa Sports. The first results of this collaboration will show on 15th January in Antwerp though the collecton is planned to go international in the future. I had a little chat with Walter about IQONS and the current state of contemporary fashion at his Paris showroom.

What helped to make Walter Van Beirendonck the man that he is today? I asked him to identify five major events in his life.

First would have to be attending the Royal Academy of Antwerp. Definitely it was a big discovery. Finally I was among people that were interested in the same things that I was interested in. For years I had been surrounded by people whose whole life revolved around football. For the first time I was among people that liked fashion and that liked to paint and to create. For me it was like wow, it was an incredible feeling.

Meeting Dirk Van Saene. We met at school and of course it changed my life, we've been together ever since.

Going to London together with the Antwerp Six and building something. We did not know how we were going to do it but we all knew that we were going to do something. We did it in a very ambitious and self-conscious way. We knew that we had something to say and it was a really nice mood. During that period we experienced and discovered so many new things.

Starting up the W.&L.T. collections and the period when I did all the big shows. It was an important decision that also happened by coincidence but in the end it had a lot of impact on my career. And it was the moment that I could show exactly what I wanted to say.

Deciding to stop with W.&L.T. and to restart on my own which was of course a very big decision because I left behind everything from the past and I restarted from scratch and began a new career which was very difficult at that time because of finances and organization, it was a huge decision.

Walter was always sure of exactly what he wanted to do and he never hesitated. He is still a believer in acting on instinct even though it is not something that is all that well accepted in the fashion world. I might add that it took him exactly 5 minutes to accept our proposal once we explained the philosophy and asked him if he would be our first IQON. We at IQONS.com were thrilled.

Let's talk about your shows, they were monumental and unforgettable. I still have such strong visions of the first one at the Lido and a Fetish for Beauty with the amazing dancing and the one where we all walked through the snow following a path of fluorescent flashlights that everyone stole on the way in (so we could hardly find our way back out again) and Welcome little Stranger and your last one Believe and honestly, you never once disappointed me.

When I used to do the big shows there were about 10 or 15 people working on the collections. From the moment that I started to think about the collection I started to think about the presentation and even the looks and the styling and the make up. All those ideas were there from my very first sketches. It became one big story. It was not like I first made the collection and then I started to think about styling. I thought about the way that it would be presented, where it would be, the casting, the make-up, it was all one feeling and one story. I still think that way now. From the beginning 'till now I make the first sketches with the styling and the make-up. I am a storyteller and it is my way of thinking and presenting in a total way.

I really like to work with the same people that I've been working with since the beginning. We worked intensely on the shows with people like Stephen Jones and Orlan. The last big show was BELIEVE. The curtain opened up with the fairy tale and the last image of the show was of the nude man with BELIEVE written on his torso.

Your most recent collection had you as Rainbow man with the theme being STOP TERRORIZING THE WORLD, can we talk a bit about that?

That was the message from the winter collection and it is still something that I am really concerned about. I think that if you are in a position to spread the word and to do something that you are obliged to do it and that is something that I don't like about this fashion world. A lot of designers are jumping from one funny thing to another funny thing or from one subject to another subject. I think that it is a pity that they don't use their voice to talk about something more important and to try and change the vision and the minds of the people. I think that for example the subject of tolerance is so important. In Belgium it is really a main item with the elections this week on Sunday. Here the extreme right is very powerful and we had a strong reaction from the music people in Belgium, they gave concerts and talked about tolerance meanwhile the fashion world was totally silent which was strange for me. When I knew that I was going to do a show last January I knew that I did not want to do a normal catwalk presentation, I wanted to show something extra. That is why I created all these characters that were on the back of models, I consider these images to represent the main figures that are important in our world today. It went from the exterminator with all the diseases that are going on in the world like aids, overpopulation, fever, and then there was Mr. Greedy which was America and the fast food business and Mr. Bush and the fighting and war and we had Miss Amazon who was partly a beautiful woman (we used Madonna as the symbol) and partly decayed body showing her bones but still wearing designer jewels. The Rainbow man was actually me still believing in the rainbows. Like that I created different characters, which are for me the world of today together with the message Stop Terrorizing Our World, which for me was a kind of statement.

How do you keep the child alive inside of you?

I think that it is part of my character. I am always trying to discover new things in a very innocent way. I never decide in advance that something is not going to interest me or that I am not going to like it. I try to at least look at it and listen to it and like that I can keep the freshness like a child. I am very open to everything. I think that you feel that also in my work.
Right now I am creating children's books, which is a new thing for me. It is linked to the commercial children's collection [ZulupaPUWA] that I made in Belgium. They are very simple stories about the good and the bad, the space and the earth. Even if I make a children's collection the first step is the story and following that the characters are built. It is my way of thinking, I think in stories.

ZulupaPUWA is a commercial project that is only sold in Belgium in about 60 shops. It has the perfect Walter feeling. The collection is based on my two favorite make believe tribes and all of the characters and stories are built around that. The parents were at first a bit scared of my children's collections because they were quite expensive and they were worried. With my new partners on this project we make a good product for a good price and it is selling very well. The children like it and so do their parents.

Do you look for something specific in students?

Of course, we want people with strong identities that have something inside of them that have to come out. When you are working with them you start to discover some valuable personalities. That is what we do in the school. We try to discover individual personalities and then we try to push their boundaries and to bring them forward, that is what happens and after 4 years of intensive training.

What are your thoughts on 'commercial', is it a bad word?

On the one hand I am always fighting the fashion world but on the other hand I have always enjoyed making commercial products because I do like to work in the fashion business. From the very beginning of my career I produced commercial collections. I did it then and I am still producing commercial collections now. My feeling is this; as long as the collection fits into my way of thinking I love thinking commercially. The problem arises when you are forced to get rid of your personality and that is when things start to go wrong for me but as long as it is meant to be a commercial, sellable product I love to do it. I did many years of commercial collections in Italy. I worked with Ferré doing his jeans line back in the 90s. I really love that side of fashion as well.

What do you think about the state of fashion now?

When we were studying at school there was a kind of explosion of talent. First you had the Italians that arrived with Armani and Versace and you had the French with Gaultier and Mugler and Montana and the year after you had the Japanese with Comme des Garcons and Yohji Yamamoto. For us it was an amazing time because it gave us a big sign that creativity could change things and conquer the world. That period I think was the most creative and the most explosive period in fashion. Since that time businessmen have been dominating what happens in fashion and even in the nineties it was much more dominated by the product managers than the designers and it's been like that for more than the past decade.
The Belgian movement was a movement of creativity but in a more balanced way. The force of the Belgians and why a lot of them have survived is because they understand the balance between creativity and making a good quality product.
Even when I was at school I was very interested in fashion I really enjoyed it but at the same time I really had my doubts about certain things. I was always interested in the underground and the underdog position and even afterwards when I started to work in fashion it was always a love hate relationship because there were always certain things that I really enjoyed and loved and others that I found disturbing or not ethical or just not right.
Fashion has become a big business and I think that is a very scary situation, if you look at what happened with people like Helmut Lang and Jil Sander who were bought and sold and put out. The fact that managers and businessmen have replaced strong designers is a clear sign that business is dominating fashion.

Who is an iqon for you?

When I was growing up David Bowie was a big icon for me. It was the time when he was changing from one person to another and it really inspired me a lot. I think that an icon should have a very recognizable character and a very strong point of view and there are not so many.

What do you think about Identity?

Of course Identity is the strongest signature of a designer and I always like it when I see something that is instantly recognizable. I like it when you can feel the spirit of the designer immediately. That is not something that you feel from collections that are changing a bit from season to season, following trends, going from romantic to hard core. I don't have much respect for that kind of a designer. Granted they are probably more commercial and better for the industry but on the other hand I cannot respect people that are followers. Sometimes I really hate the parasites, the ones that are copying and trying to create a fake identity. However it is very difficult for people that have a strong identity because your look can be in or out and that is not easy. If you do survive the periods when you are out of fashion and then you come back it is also like having a second life, that is a great feeling too, I think that I am on my 3rd or 4th reincarnation, you can refresh your own work and like that you refresh your audience. New people are always discovering my work.

Who do you consider to be in your fashion family?

The first member has to be Dirk Van Saene. We've been together for almost 30 years. After him there are the people that I have been working with, my colleagues at school and my colleagues on other projects are all very important to me. I am very loyal and I am working with a lot of the same people over a very long period of time. I would have to include Inge Grognard and Ronald Stoops, Make-up and Photographer in Antwerp. I started working with these people when I was very young and I continue to work with them. I think that it is very important to build up a fashion family and to be loyal to them. It is easier to work with people that already understand what you are trying to say, that way through an exchange you get better results.

How do you think that we can support young talent?

I think that the idea of IQONS is really nice. It gives designers and talent a platform as opposed to the existing systems that are very expensive. As it is now it is very expensive to put on fashion shows, to work with PR people and to hire agents and rent showrooms. I am not saying that the system is old fashion but probably it is in need of a change. When IQONS came up with this way of giving people a platform in a different way I thought that it was a really good idea. It might not be the perfect solution but it is a good way to start.

december 2006