MoMu opens a major exhibition dedicated to the designers of the ‘antwerp six’, including Dries van note

Antwerp Six exhibition at MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp

MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp celebrates the designers of the Antwerp Six with greatness show dedicated to their crafts and history. 40 years after the London group began, the museum is highlighting their works in an authorized exhibition, which will run from March 28, 2026 until January 17, 2027. It is the first time that all six have been brought together for an in-depth analysis of their individual paths and collective impact on the design and fashion industry. The exhibition begins in Antwerp in the 1970s, when Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, and Marina Yee were still students.

Fashion at that time it was going through a period of rapid change, and the Parisian haute couture group was still strong, but it was challenged from many directions at once: punk arrived from London with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, the new Romantic area that shot groups such as The Blitz, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, sending shock 198 Italy and small Armanis. redefining menswear. The Antwerp students visited all these cities. They went to exhibitions, clubs, record stores, and returned those influences to the city that had its experimental scenes and nightlife that kept the students of the Academy closely related, even when their individual careers pulled in different directions over time.

images courtesy of MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp | The Antwerp Six, 1986 © Karel Fonteyne

A large exhibition following the crafts and history of the designers

The economic situation is also important, and MoMu show dedicated to the Antwerp Six refers directly to it. When they graduated in the early 1980s, Belgium’s clothing and textile industry was struggling, and the government launched a five-year Textile Policy that included investment in young designers through competitions such as the Golden Spindle and a national campaign called Mode, dit is Belgisch – Fashion, this is Belgian. The show follows that link between policy, industry, and creative success, until each of the six approaches fashion from a different perspective. Dries Van Noten has created a language around fabric, print, and traditional fabric from textile traditions and translating them into wearable collections. His house, which he ran independently in Antwerp until his retirement in 2024, became one of the last major fashion labels to remain outside the luxury convention.

Ann Demeulemeester worked with blackness, with asymmetry, and in the space between strength and fragility, carrying a powerful and poetic meaning in style. Walter Van Beirendonck built a style around the body as a fantasy space, using color, scale, and provocation to ask questions about identity, desire, and politics through clothing. Dirk Bikkembergs based his work on sports, architecture, and rugged masculinity, and was one of the first designers to take sportswear seriously as a design language rather than a commercial category. Dirk Van Saene created a body of work defined by creativity and stillness, while Marina Yee brought the philosophy of waste and reuse to her work long before performance became fashion design. What the exhibition argues, with what MoMu describes as a fascinating image, is that the Antwerp Six became a cultural center MoMu Director Kaat Debo explains that the six helped to create the history of modern fashion, and the exhibition gives that history a place to stand for viewers to walk.

The Antwerp Six, 1985 © Patrick Robyn

The Antwerp Six, 1987, published in WWD © Philippe Costes

project details:

name: Antwerp Six

museum: MoMu – Fashion museum in Antwerp | @momuantwerp

dates: March 28, 2026 to January 17, 2027

location: Nationalestraat 28, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium