Walter Van Beirendonck
(Brecht,
1957 )
Walter Van Beirendonck headed the prestigious Fashion Department of the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts from 2007 to 2022. After his graduation from the same institution in 1980, he quickly gained fame as one of ‘the Antwerp Six’ (with Dirk Van Saene, Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Marina Yee and Dirk Bikkembergs). Together, in the following years, they put Antwerp on the international map as a contemporary fashion city. In 2001, Van Beirendonck curated the important exhibition, Mode 2001 Landed-Geland, at the M HKA. Since 1983, he has launched collections of his own, each of them bearing an eccentric title. In recent decades – despite his international success – Van Beirendonck has succeeded in maintaining his autonomy. A self-conscious ‘outsider’, he is sometimes described as the shaman of fashion
