DRESS 2 was the second exhibition in collaboration with the Fashion Museum (MoMu, Antwerp) and the Fashion Department,The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, featuring students’ project DRESS.
Not yet graduates, these early student works explain the reputation of one of the world’s most respected fashion schools and demonstrates the discipline which has placed so many of its graduates at the centre of their own successful international fashion businesses. Starting out with more than 60 students in the first year, only 14 remain in the final year of the course. Many repeat one or more years as each year must be passed before progressing to the next.
For their first assignment in fashion design, Antwerp’s students make a study of a skirt, which is subsequently executed in the ‘coupe’ or ‘tailoring’ course. Their second assignment is the study and creation of a dress, which is produced in poplin cotton. The treatment and the processing (pleats, folds, wrinkling, etc.) of the material are a function of the specific selection of fabric.
The design phase deals with the basic elements of the design process: line, form and volume, proportions, balance and rhythm, handling the material, movement, and the body in relation to design. In this assignment, the study of the sleeve, sometimes in combination with the collar, is central; the emphasis usually lies on the dress as a form of apparel in relation to the body, rather than the dress as an object in itself.
DRESS 2 featured pieces by:
Anouk Wirtz
Charlotte Pringels
Eftychia Karamolegkou
Elena Minyeyevtseva
Frederik Hornof
Iva Minkova
Jantine van Peski
Kanako Matsuo
Kenta Kodaira
Laura Welker
Lenny Pier Ramos
Matthias Weber
Michelle Woods
Miguel Boutens
Miriam Schwarz
Niels Peeraer
Puya Azizi
Urok Shirham
DRESS 2 followed SKIRT 1 which had on an astonishing response in London for the imagination, wit and breathtaking skill with which the 23 pieces had been constructed.
