Dirk Van Saene

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As a fashion designer, Dirk van Saene has long enjoyed worldwide recognition, and his influence in the discipline cannot be overestimated. Widely cited as a formative inspiration to a generation of younger designers—including, for example, Veronique Branquinho and Bernard Wilhelm, the outgoing and incoming Professors of Fashion at Vienna’s Angewandte für Bildende Kunst—van Saene began his career with his own Antwerp shop, Beauties and Heroes, in 1981. Two years after opening the shop, he won the gold medal at Belgium’s prestigious Golden Spindle contest. Four years later, he secured an international reputation by presenting his collection in London as a member of the so-called Antwerp Six, alongside Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, and Marina Yee.

Unlike some of these colleagues, van Saene has always maintained a small company and a limited scale of production, distributing his work through a carefully selected group of shops worldwide. This approach has allowed him to minimise pressure to compromise his eccentric and heartfelt vision. Although Ceramics marks van Saene’s first exhibition of artworks, admirers of his fashion have long been familiar with his practice as a painter: collection after collection has featured hand-painted garments and printed reproductions of his paintings on fabric. For Ceramics, the artist has collaborated with craftsmen across Europe to create a body of work encompassing not only ceramics, but also woodwork, glasswork, and more, all brought together in a sculptural Gesamtkunstwerk.

Van Saene lives and works in Antwerp. In addition to designing collections under his own name, he runs the shop Walter together with Walter van Beirendonck, and teaches fashion design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp.

DIRK VAN SAENE by Dirk Van Saene

HANNIBAL BOOKS

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THE ANTWERP SIX

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REGULAR PRICE ¥18,150 (tax incl.)