BIO
LĒO is a Belgium-based brand that was established in 2016 by artistic director Leonneke Derksen (Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Belgium) and founder Matthias Medaer.
LĒO was created in Paris, while gaining experience at fashion houses like Balenciaga and Carven.
This period was the base on which the vision of the brand was born, as the team got in touch and ultimately became part of a new generation of young designers.
Moving LĒO to the center of Europe (Brussels, Belgium) was a natural outcome of the need for full dedication to the brand and focus on the quality of it’s product, which is produced exclusively in Europe.
VISION
LĒO embodies the energy between luxury, avant-garde and street wear.
Experience over time formed a brand-specific set of values which consist of dedication to self-expression, nostalgia and the desire to push boundaries and evoke excitement.
Inspiration comes from various worlds and aesthetics and combines eras, movements, atmospheres and subcultures, regardless of codes.
Ideas are found in the space between external and internal experience and research is extracted from unique experiences in between quotidien performances and memorable rare involvements.
The brand displays the mind of different generations and the dualities that lie within them.
Attitude, authenticity and honesty are the essence of the LĒO customer.
PRODUCT
At the core of all reflections lays a product which represents a balance of quality and originality.
These products are carfully placed in worlds in which the brand expresses an original take on ‘reality’ and its movements.
LĒO garments oppose seriousness with spontaneity and question common rules with creativity and curiousness.
Wearing LĒO implements appreciation for sophistication and uniqueness. Distinguished shapes turn through worked-out bleaching and dying technics into one of a kind garments for a one of a kind wearer.
LĒO embraces the awkwardness and accentuates it’s inherent potential for innovation which can be recognised in the choice of material and reccurent elements like metal details.
Each collection is a mix of unexpected and iconic elements with a touch of ‘‘no rule“ humor.
This fuse contains on one side traditional tailored or classic technical elements that breathe rationality and on the other side the element of surprise, instinct and emotion.
21-25, Rue Gheude Brussels 1070 Belgium
Heimweh
HeimwehFounded in 2010, HEIMWEH is a luxury men’s undergarments collection that embraces high quality, extreme comfort and timeless design. The name of the brand translated means longing for ones home or country, in this case a nostalgic feeling of missing something that we can’t bring back, or maybe can… The illustrated logo is a trigger to reflect the good old days; positive sensations connected to places, a smell or objects; a phase in time , someone we loved or still love…
Sandro Faber, founder of the collection explores the boundaries between innocent, sometimes naive, and rational side of his character. Brought up by a family of croatian imigrants and moving back to his parents homeland at young age resulted with an exploration of his sense of belonging to a certain place and question what and where is ones home.
The combination of sharp social realistic aesthetics, and poetic, playful nature that he draws from his Slavic background results in an unique character of his collections.
ACHTERLAND VOF Toekomststraat 22 Antwerpen 2140 Belgium
Krjst
KrjstFabrieksstraat 15/19 Zaventem 1930 Belgium
ABOUT CESAR
In addition to being a model, food lover, traveler and proud author of my two cookbooks Model Kitchen and Cesar’s Kitchen and the travel guide Trippin, I have launched the Cesar Casier Knitwear Collection. While growing up, I was always surrounded by fashion. My mom owns a high-end fashion boutique “OONA” in Ghent and my stepmom is a fashion designer. They were my biggest influencers and shaped my views on fashion while growing up, the logical next step was to start my own collection.
100% MADE IN BELGIUM.
KNITWEAR COLLECTION
The Cesar Casier Knitwear Collection is 100% made in Belgium, something that is very rare nowadays. Everything I design is produced in a small family owned factory located in Sint-Niklaas, a city between Antwerp and my hometown Ghent. Fact is that back in the days there were about 300 factories located in this area and now there are only two left, a sad reality. Therefore, it is important to support the revival of Belgian knitwear as much as possible!
GENDER NEUTRAL FASHION
Next to my roots, my brand represents Gender Equality. A human right I hold dear and it is something I stand for. I translate this into my designs, as they are mostly unisex. I want my brand to lead the way in gender-neutral fashion. In my opinion, gender no longer dictates the way people dress and it does not force anyone into a box. That is why I try to design as much gender neutral pieces as possible, this allows us to express ourselves exactly the way we all want to. My designs are timeless, comfortable and basic, yet fashionable and with an eye for detail and great quality
CHARITY
I’ve always loved nature and even more, the animals who live in it. That’s why, for every sold item on my website, I’ll donate 1 euro to a charity. For my previous collection I’ve donated money to help save the dolphins, The Great Barrier Reef and the Giraffes in the wild. By donating money to a good cause, I want to send awareness to the public about the beauty of nature and to support animal and nature welfare!
Hubert Frere Orbanlaan 629 Ghent 9000 Belgium
T.VDB is the artistic fashion studio founded by Belgian multi-disciplinary fashion artist Tom Van der Borght.
The label focuses on humans rather than gender, as the core of T.VDB is hard to pinpoint under one binary definition, description or title.
T.VDB works as an independent artist, with a focus on fashion, textile, graphics, video, installation and scenography.
He is the producer of his own free work and works on commission for various partners.
Tom Van der Borght got his Fashion Design degree in 2012 at the Stedelijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten of Sint-Niklaas. Both during and after his studies he won international fashion prices and competitions.
From 2012 to 2016 he had the pleasure of showing his work during Berlin, Paris, London and Panama Fashion Week. His collections were sold in the USA, Japan and across Europe.
As a commissioned artist T.VDB worked for companies like Mercedes-Benz, Premiere Vision, DS Automobiles and Le19M. Next to that he creates artwork and video’s for national and international music artists.
In 2021 Tom received a master degree at Zuyd Hogeschool Maastricht, focusing on the intersection between performance, fashion and artistic research.
Before studying arts, Tom got his bachelors degree in Social Studies and worked for in various social organisations for several years.
Discovering at the age of 27 he suffers from a heriditary neuropathic muscle disorder confronted T.VDB with the question what is really important in life. This was the catharsic moment when he decided to study fashion design and pursue his childhood dreams.
During his study he was already confronted with the borders between fashion and art. Reflecting on his own background in social work and his own personal disposition in life led to questioning social structures, definitions, limits, … The visual language T.VDB develops goes far beyond clothes and is always creating a highly personal and questioning universe. It combines media and is crossing borders between fashion and arts.
T.VDB has an ongoing fascination for defects and errors, which comes from his own experience and the questioning of the genetic errors that shaped the designer from his birth.
Finding a place in society has always been a core element in Van der Borght’s work and life. This generated a strong interest for tribal culture, rituals and alternative/indigenous/ social structures, including elements like costumes, ritual dance and performative acts.
Being born in a typical Flemish middle class family, where culture didn’t really exist, T.VDB was fascinated by pop culture, MTV and subcultures.
“My first fashion inspiration came from the 80s, when i looked to magazines like “Mode, C’est Belge”. My mother’s classic couture training also influenced me in my love Of clothing.”
Later on in life I got introduced to more “higher” forms of “culture”. Essential in my work is the mix of those two opposites of “culture”, not necessarily as rivals or opposites. “
Marcel Duchamps once quoted : “ I do not believe in Art, I believe in Artists”.
T.VDB’s generous attitude and authentic radical way of thinking define him as a designer and an artist.
T.VDB ’s view on fashion (and clothes) isn’t purely economics:
his work could be seen as artistic objects. Clothes and outfits become part of a bigger pictures and crossing borders leads to creating a full universe, a total package.
It results in a fascination for creating video, scenography, performance and alternative ways of presentation.
A catwalk presentation has a very strong performative energy, being a boost of energy, a “hic et nunc” reflection on the present with a big artistic value.
Fashion is always a representation of the present. In his work T.VDB translates this in trying to marry the past to the future (which for him is the essence of “present”).
In 2019, T.VDB took a restart. He focuses on an elaborate masterpiece “7 ways to be TVDB”, which is a multidisciplinary selfportrait that borders on the edges between high tech bricolage, haute couture, avantgardistic fashion and low tech performance. A first stage of this work was presented in the FashionClash festival in Maastricht , and won both the Grand Jury Festival Prize as the Audience Award. With this collection the designer won the prestigious Grand Prix du Jury at the 35th Festival Internationale de La Mode de Hyères in 2020, as well as the highly desired Public Prize. His jubilant, theatrical men’s collection was praised by designer Jonathan Anderson, who presided over a jury that included, among others, consultant Amanda Harlech, model Kaia Gerber, sound maverick Michel Gaubert, photographer Tyler Mitchell, journalist Derek Blasberg and editor-in-chief of GQ, Oliver Lalanne
“What we really, really admired in the work of Tom Van Der Borght is that it was a totally new type of form, new type of shape, new type of commitment to a silhouette, and it was uncompromising,” Anderson said during a remote award ceremony. “And in this moment we are in, we as a jury believe that it was about starting this new decade with newness, this idea of originality.” Anderson continued: “It was not about looking at something for its automatic commercial sense. It was about the beauty within fashion, the handmade, the technique, and the risk in it. And I think Tom has really achieved something in what he has done and I think he will go on to do very well.”
In 2021, T.VDB had the honour to open Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Berlin, with a stunning performance he created with choreographer Blanca Li, to accompany his latest collection.
For the 36th edition of the International Festival de la Mode, he launches his new collection “Time For Love”. The collection was realised in close collaboration with Le19M, Chanel’s legendary “ateliers des Metièrs d’Art” and the support of Premiere Vision.
In the troubled world we are living in nowadays, all of us are urging for connection and closeness. We’ve been distanced, physically and psychologically but now, it’s time for love.
T.VDB welcomes you to a brighter future and a celebration of human connection. The collection is an invitation to enter the playful and colorful universe of the collection. Garments leave the borders of the individual human body and search for connections with other humans through cut, detail and accessories. The pieces play on the intersection of textures, artwork and colour.
Everybody is invited to join this contemporary tribe of neo-hippies, lonesome cowboys and genderfluid hybrid creatures, feeling the emotion in the silence and embracing love as an empowerment tool.
Kristof Buntinx
Kristof BuntinxBrussels designer Kristof Buntinx has already created a furore with his God Save the Queens shirts and gained international fame with a boxer short collection with which he targeted Russian anti-gay laws.
Protest and irony are therefore no strangers to Buntinx, but he also dresses Belgian celebrities in little bespoke gems just as much as he has children photographed as superstars. The exiled Sint-Truiden native has been working under his own label for more than a decade. An official introduction is called for!
Kristof Buntinx was born on 10 September 1975 in the Limburg town of Sint-Truiden. He quickly showed an interest in fashion and design and proceeded to draw from a model and attended sewing and pattern design classes. Buntinx completed internships with several major fashion labels such as Levis jeans and the Amsterdam fashion duo Viktor & Rolf.
His own image language
After his initial designs for the Cinderella Shop in Antwerp he sank his teeth into (and left his fingerprints on) a series of coffee mugs for Godiva. Soon Buntinx would tackle hats, a trick he was able to repeat in 2012 for Royal Ascot.
Shortly thereafter, the Pain clothing line followed, with its own photo series in collaboration with Stijn Vanorbeek. Still inspired by the world of image creation, Buntinx worked with filmmaker Ilke De Vries, this time to explore moving images. The film Vision was the result, in which the designer searched his own conscience by referring to a personal crisis.
Artist’s blood
Between 2008 and 2010 Buntinx focused on hats and a full line of accessories.
Triggered by his own life and personal developments, language associations and puns took up an increasingly important place in his work. Like any true-blue artist, Buntinx also creates from an inner drive. “I have always been crazy about fashion, but designing also proved to be beneficial for my mental health. It is my “therapy with a capital T,” the designer states.
Once Buntinx found his way, an increasing number of opportunities came up: in 2011 the Toga 125 Fashion Awards and a fashion show in which his design Ceci n’est pas un Advocaat shone. That same year Modo Brussels, the MIAT in Ghent and Hong Kong Design week also followed. A prominent fashion watcher from the UK even called Buntinx the most eccentric fashion designer of the Modo Brussels event.
The future is now!
Loved by the international fashion blog scene, Kristof Buntinx does not shun controversy. For example, he came up with a series of socially committed designs such as his answer to the Antwerp rainbow controversy, the God Save the Queens T-shirt’, his Russian boxer shorts, which even reached the American media and the crown jewels for King Philip.
During the last festive period Buntinx surprised friend and foe with a range of crisis jewellery, which questions material luxury. The Christmas dresses designed by Buntinx for Dana Winners’ Christmas tour and for Marlène de Wouters, the presenter at the Queen Elisabeth competition earlier in 2013, were, on the other hand, downright luxurious.
Kristof Buntinx certainly aims to let his designs speak for themselves in 2015.
Stay tuned!
Tales and Tailoring
Created in winter 2012, with passionate know-how, and addressed to informed connoisseurs, the new Belgian brand created by Marcy Szwarcburt reflects an original concept of nightwear to be worn both indoors and outdoors during the day as by night, chic and trendy.
An absolute Must Have for the happy few
A subtle blend of cool elegance, nonchalance and an aristocratic dandy fantasy.
A quintessential dress code for the cream of the crop
A variation of subtle materials and very high quality accessories has been selected to create this collection and translate the brand’s philosophy.
Pure Pima cottons, double and triple twisted, crisp poplins, oxfords or plain or lined cotton satins, checks or dots.
Exclusive prints are created each season according to its theme.
Mother-of-pearl buttons, braids, piping, and edging finish the garment which will be embroidered with interlaced double MM for the final touch.
The man behind the brand
Marcy Szwarcburt created his first pajamas in 1984
After more than 22 years at the helm of Donaldson and five years of wise thinking, Marcy has kept intact his aesthetic sense and his taste for things well done.
His know-how and his passion for beautiful materials, impeccable cuts and finishes as well as a very personal sense of humor are found in his new creation Maison Marcy
rue de l’Abbaye 7 Brussels 1050 Belgium
Bellerose
BelleroseOUR PASSION FOR REINTERPRETED AUTHENTICITY
COLLECTIONS
Designing garments without compromise allows us to focus on genuine products and authentic values. Our collections are based on true stories, delivering a specific point of view, which has become our signature. We control our product and our brand, while knowing that God is in the details. The Bellerose woman juggles between a military-inspired parka, that conceals a night gown and a pair of army trousers worn with leather brogues. Her children are granted the permission to be everything, all at once. Reflecting their age group, they enjoy their activities without worrying about the state of their t-shirt after a fight on the grass. With references to the army and workwear, the Bellerose man revisits the “old school” to suit an allure at that is at the same time casual and unique.
STORES
Creating a store is like building a new home. We want the space to be comfortable and functional, as well as reflecting our own tastes and aesthetics. Each store is individual, even though there are features they all share creating this particular Bellerose experience. Authenticity is core to all 16 flagship Bellerose stores and its 600 multi brand customers across Europe, Japan and the United States. Merging architectural genius with respect and preservation of the space: the stores are designed with wood, ambient sound, olfactory, cosy, raw and wide spaces. It is something rough and rock ‘n roll, real and sought out.
3 Rijshout Groot-Bijgaarden 1702 Belgium
B-shirt – United States of Belgium
B-shirt – United States of Belgium71 Chaussée de Charleroi Bruxelles 1060 Belgium
We are an independent creative label based in Brussels mainly active in the fashion, music and audiovisual sector.