‘We created our personal island’: a brand new exhibition sees discrete Belgian vogue label Jan-Jan Van Essche step into the highlight

The world of designer Jan-Jan Van Essche is one usually taken for bohemian. Cerebral maybe. But for those who know, his garments are exacting and refined. Mathematical of their building, and magical of their magnificence, their materiality is firmly of this world.

Van Essche graduated from the style division of the Royal Academy of Wonderful Arts in 2003 and arrange his label in 2010 from Atelier Solarshop, the Antwerp boutique he runs along with his associate, Pietro Celestina. A demi-retrospective based mostly on his S/S 2025 assortment is now on view at MoMu, The Style Museum in Antwerp. It’s ‘the story on the level of the place we are actually,’ he says.

‘Jan-Jan Van Essche – Khayal’ at MoMu Style Museum Antwerp 

Passing by way of curtains handmade by Lamine Diouf, a weaving artist from Senegal with whom Van Essche has collaborated for a few years, you arrive alongside a form of Japanese veranda. Inside, ten mannequins made utilizing reclaimed bar stools and wood shovels by Rune Tuerlinckx are rooted right into a advantageous desert sand. Their spherical plaster heads have been painted with tea and dyes. ‘My garments usually are not actually the sort you would put onto a wall and have a look at like an art work. They’re very discrete. They’re made for all times, not for displaying so in that sense I wanted the dynamic of what you are feeling in these mannequins. As a result of it’s delicate and muted, you could carry some oomph to it in one other manner.’ Hanging on these reclaimed supplies, the garments – principally constructed from squares and rectangles – nonetheless seem full, with a delicate quantity that implies flesh and bone.

Half anthropological exposition, half craft conservation, textile improvement is actually the place Van Essche’s métier comes into its personal. A inexperienced cloth that appears like polyester is definitely a dense cotton with silk, woven on a shuttle loom that ceased for use after the Nineteen Fifties. It’s designed by an 86-year- previous man in Japan who as soon as developed materials for Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garcons. A gray-green textile is chambray, woven with two completely different shades of older undyed cotton that was reintroduced into the textiles trade within the Nineteen Eighties. Van Essche says: ‘In the event you aren’t informed this, I don’t assume you absolutely perceive the garments. When you’ve got such a clean floor, it must be carried by a very good cloth. Over time we discovered so many unbelievable materials and I’m psyched to have the ability to work with them. I simply wish to share it and preserve that alive. You’re additionally supporting tradition and historical past if you put on them.

Final 12 months he met Rituraj Dewan, co-founder of 7Weaves, a small textile firm that work with indigenous tribes in Assam’s forests. The 2 clicked and spent hours speaking about their frustrations with the time period ‘sustainable vogue’. ‘We’re fairly sustainable, however I’d by no means name myself that. I don’t wish to be in that market – it’s a buzzword that’s usually misused. I’d slightly lead by instance than have massive phrases. As an example, this poplin, I don’t know that it is formally sustainable, however I do know that this manufacturing facility has solely eight looms, and there are 5 folks working there and they won’t over purchase, and they won’t over produce. You may be sustainable within the wages you pay, the way you deal with folks, paying your invoices on time.’ For this assortment, Van Essche spent two weeks in Assam growing the textiles.