If you’re into high fashion and take it seriously – both in terms of wearing clothes, but also academically and intellectually – then the infamous Antwerp Six will be a group that you’ve heard of. The group is made up of 6 designers that all studied together at Antwerp’s Royal Academy between 1980 and 1981, culminating in a show in ‘81.
The show was in London, so the Six piled themselves and their designs into the back of a van and set off on the 240-mile trip.
In style, their designs were notable for their vivid, avant-garde and experimental approaches. Nowadays, each designer has traveled down their own path, but they share the same origins.
Dries Van Noten might be the most known of the Six. He is well regarded for contemporary men’s and women’s wear, often utilising eccentric patterns and rejecting minimalism. He designed a floral dress for Michelle Obama, and an infamous suit for Villanelle in BBC’s Killing Eve.
On Menswear shores, Van Noten’s designs can be flamboyant and armed with geometric flair, or relaxed and layered, like this shirt that uses the power of stripes to charm.
Pockets has a considerable stock of Van Noten’s bits, including this trench coat, which, combined with this merino wool track jacket/cardigan fusion, as seen above, is a cerebral mind-fuck of an outfit.
