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UNRUN is a high-end sustainable activewear brand, founded and designed by Olympic Champions with an eye for detail and an impeccable fit. As hands-on experts, we have an unrivalled knowledge of how sportswear must feel, move, breathe, and look. Additionally, all pieces are tested and approved by a group of elite female athletes, making them a true testament to craftsmanship.
From a sweat at the gym to the drill of daily life, we’re on a continuous quest to create the most versatile garments, withstanding every workout
Avenue Reine Marie Henriette 101 Brussels 1190 Belgium
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SPRANKELEND STIJLVOLLE DAMESKLEDING
Vrouwelijkheid ten top
Ons uitgangspunt is de vrouw. Wat vindt zij van een bepaald kledingstuk, hoe bevalt de kleur, hoe ervaart ze het comfort van een zekere pasvorm. Onze damescollecties zijn uitermate geschikt voor een vrouw die zelfzeker en vrolijk in het leven staat en er absoluut niet voor terugschrikt om dat ook aan de buitenwereld te tonen. Paspoppen zijn zichtbaar in de winkel, maar tijdens het ontwerpproces blijven ze ver uit het zicht. Niets kan immers tippen aan de vormen van échte modellen, waarop elk collectiestuk wordt getest en gekeurd.
Designed in Belgium, made in Italy
Geen ingetogen kledij, maar ook niet overdadig. Due Amanti ging voor de gulden middenweg; just right. Klasse hoeft niet saai te zijn; wij verkiezen sprankelend stijlvol. Geregeld reizen we af naar Italië om samen met onze fabrikanten te brainstormen, uit te proberen, aan te passen en uiteindelijk te creëren.
HOGESTRAAT 111 HOOGLEDE 8830 Belgium
Nathalie Vleeschouwer
Nathalie VleeschouwerInfo
Nathalie Vleeschouwer offers the kind of subtle elegance to women of character who want to enjoy life actively and confidently.
The Belgian designer launched her collection in 2011, but the roots of her fashion house go back as far as 1990. Inspiration is derived from all corners of the globe and distilled by Nathalie and her team at their headquarters in Antwerp. Because the soul of the collection is inextricably bound to the designer herself, it has an authentic style and is continually evolving, just like Nathalie’s creative ideas.
Experience, craftsmanship and lasting partnerships with a handful of suppliers and workshops form the basis of every garment that bears her name. Made with love, so that you can wear it again and again, and mix & match it with different items every season. Where the creativity of this collection – released once every six months – stops, yours begins.
Who is Nathalie?
Nathalie Vleeschouwer really does exist. She is not just the designer of the collection; she is also a wife, the mother of three children and two dogs, a traveller, nature lover, city-tripper, swimmer, connoisseur, and so much more.
Nathalie actively enjoys life and the clothing she wears plays an important part in this. It gives her confidence and supports her in all her activities, making it an essential part of her life.
There may be only one Nathalie Vleeschouwer, but many women can identify with her.
Why did she create the collection?
Nathalie Vleeschouwer’s interest in fashion stems from her childhood. Her father was a purchaser for a clothing chain, and as a child she loved nothing more than to accompany him to the big clothing factories. The Antwerp Academy of fashion was a logical next step in her career, but she decided – at the age of 22 – to swap the Academy with learning from practice. This resulted in the launch of Fragile, a maternity wear collection, in 1990. In those days, making fashionable maternity clothing was unheard of. That is how Nathalie became a global pioneer in the world of maternity fashion. The collection was a great success, all the way from Antwerp to Tokyo, and many brands have since followed in Fragile’s footsteps.
Having won the Womed Award in 2010 for female entrepreneurship, Nathalie felt she was ready to embark on a new venture in addition to Fragile. To underscore the authentic style of this new collection she decided to give it her own name: Nathalie Vleeschouwer.
The first collection was presented at the international trade fair in Paris in September 2010 and was available in shops in the spring of 2011.
What does the company Natale do?
Natale stands for Nathalie, and also for the Italian word for ‘birth’.
The family business comprises two collections: Fragile & Nathalie Vleeschouwer. Both are the artistic creations of designer Nathalie Vleeschouwer. The management of Natale is in the hands of Nathalie herself and her husband, Jan.
A staff of approximately 40 work hard every day, prominently or behind the scenes, in a wide range of jobs from pattern designer to sales assistant. By outsourcing as little work as possible experience is combined, ensuring a dynamic business culture.
Who makes your favourite pieces?
Nathalie Vleeschouwer is the head designer of a creative team, and collaborates with her own pattern maker. Each design is developed in detail by our team. We strive to build relationships of trust with all our suppliers and manufacturers, in which transparency and long-term cooperation are of the essence. We regularly visit our partners on site with a view to strengthening our ties and building a genuine relationship of trust and mutual respect.
Socially responsible entrepreneurship and sustainability
Respect for people, the environment and society are key values at Natale.
By opting for quality goods at fair as a starting point, we hope to contribute to enhancing the sustainability of the fashion industry. We deliberately choose to release only two collections a year and are adverse to hypes as well as overproducing. By adhering to this long-term vision we can make honest fashion that you will enjoy for many years to come and in which both the maker and the wearer take pride.
Our collections are produced without any use of child labour, in pleasant working conditions and for honest wages by audited suppliers with whom we build up partnerships with a long-term vision.
Keeping our creative, commercial and administrative departments under one and the same roof in Antwerp ensures that Natale’s environmental impact remains limited. We make every effort to minimise our ecological footprint throughout our production chain as well. This is one of the reasons why we have been sourcing more than half of what we produce from Belgian manufacturers for over 20 years. The remaining half is primarily produced in Europe.
Step by step, we aim to integrate more ecological fabrics into the collection every season – depending on the offering – while always maintaining a correct price/quality ratio.
Kammenstraat 82 Antwerpen 2000 Belgium
Kammenstraat 82 Antwerpen 2000 Belgium
Onderbergen 17 9000 Gent Belgium
Grote Markt 62 2500 Lier Belgium
Ernest Allardstraat 8 Brussel 1000 Belgium
Driehoeksplein 8 Knokke-Heist 8300 Belgium
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Aymara is the result of the love story between a Belgian engineer, Sven Van Gucht, who met Yannina Esquivias, a young Peruvian travel agent, during a sabbatical year and fell in love. Yannina and Sven quit their jobs and started a knitting factory in Peru together with Yannina’s family. In 2007, the knitwear label Aymara was born. The name Aymara refers to a native ethnic group in the Andes of South America.
Concept
The magic of Aymara lies in the combination of Belgian design and Peru’s extraordinary fibers and textile craftmenship. Aymara’s knitwear is produced in our own knitting factory in Arequipa, in the south of Peru, managed by Yannina’s family. Thank’s to our strong relationship with them and their unconditional commitment, this incredible intercontinental project could be achieved. We believe that in today’s world of fast fashion and mass consumption, people are looking for authentic products with a soul. When buying Aymara, you are sure to get longlasting, sustainable products with an extraordinary story.
Design
Excellent natural fibers play a key role and are the starting point of each Aymara design. This is why Aymara chooses to offer pure styles available in a wide colour palette of bright and soft colours. Our designers take into account the fashion trends but at the same time, we make sure that each Aymara product is timeless and longlasting. A lot of attention has been paid for the perfect fitting form and discrete refined details. The kids collection, designed by Yannina has a playful character whereas the women’s collection, designed by Saskia Van Herzeele is very feminine.
Fiber
Peru manufactures some of the world’s finest quality fibers. For our summer collections, Aymara uses Peruvian pima cotton which is considered to be one of the softest and finest cottons in existence. In winter, garments made of precious alpaca blends are always an important part of our collection. Alpaca is a cousin of the llama and is prized for it’s thermal properties, silkiness and durability. Alpaca is a fiber which does not come at the expense of the environment. In today’s world, dominated by artificial materials, alpaca is the natural option. Alpacas graze at elevations of 3500 to 5000 meters in the Peruvian Andes. This precious fibre is used by top designers world wide. Aymara only uses the finest alpaca fibers, called baby alpaca. In our winter collections we also offer garments made of fine merino wool from Argentina.
Production
Aymara’s knitting plant is fully integrated and employs about 60 persons on the pay roll. This assures us to be in complete control of the production process and the quality of the garments. Although the knitting process itself has been industrialized, the production process is labour intensive and still requires a lot of manual operations. A lot of attention is been paid to the linking and finishing processes. Aymara garments are fully fashioned ; this means that the cutting and overlocking process is avoided as much as possible. By doing so, Aymara’s customers are getting a high quality product with one of the finest linking and finishing standards on the market. Turn your Aymara garment inside out and you will see what we mean !
Although most of the collection is produced on industrial knitting machines, each winter season Aymara offers a small theme of hand knit accessories. This enables women to generate an income by hand knitting at their home while taking care of their children. For a lot of these women it would be impossible to work inside a company because of their family situation and the lack of childcare. You can recognize these products by the “Aymara hand knit” hang tag. We are currently investigating how this could be integrated into a wider social project.
Head office & International Sales Aymara bvba Bornem 2880 Belgium
Showroom Aymara Antwerp Kielsevest 70 Antwerpen 2018 Belgium
Hasseltsesteenweg 105, Kortessem 3720
Sofie D’Hoore
Sofie D’HooreBoulevard Barthélémy 11 Brussels 1000 Belgium
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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.
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Woman of the world, discreet and passionate philanthropist, visionary businesswoman: Myriam Ullens de Schooten has a thousand lives. And each and every one of them feeds her never-ending and tireless creative energy. In 2009, just five years after founding the Mimi Foundation that supports people with cancer, she launched her own clothing brand. First named MUS after her name’s initials, the brand have since been renamed Maison Ullens. Its purpose? To imagine and to create the perfect wardrobe for a woman like her: traveling around the world but remaining elegant and stylish.
You never cheat with quality
The first store opens in Aspen, Colorado. The second one in Paris, Rue Marignan, at the corner of one of the most renowned place in Paris: Avenue Montaigne. Follow a one year pop-up shop in London, in the heart of the fancy, iconic and Francophile neighborhood of South Kensington. Her inspiration, Myriam finds it during her travels and fuels it with her passions, art and architecture. Each of the Maison Ullens’ shop designed by Rem Koolhass features a piece of art, by Anish Kapoor or Ado Chale. Because in her personal life as in her business life, Myriam never forgets the advice the famous chef Gaston Lenôtre once gave her: you never cheat with quality.
After finishing business school, Kim Laursen decided to take a different path. And passing the entrance exam of the Kolding School of Fashion and Design on a hunch was not randomly: when he was a teenager, he would already draw dresses and clothing pattern in his notebook. But when the jury asked him to produce a summer collection, he’d rather went with a winter collection. A daring move – that made him pass the exam with honors from the jury. And “daring” continue to define Kim today. Fascinated by Paris and Montmartre district, he came to the City of Lights in 1990. He quickly landed an internship with one of his idol: Christian Lacroix. The internship was supposed to last two months. It will last 14 years.
The impossible alchemy between simple and complex
An amazing career marked with collaboration with some of the most prestigious houses and brands like Kenzo, Cacharel, Azzaro, Paule Ka, Vanessa Seward and Elie Saab.In September 2014, he took the head of the creation of Maison Ullens, walking in the footsteps of Veronique Leroy. Always looking for elegant and easy-to-wear clothing, Kim’s goal is to combine his minimalistic codes to our different collections. Passionate about contemporary art and fascinated by geometry, he tirelessly tries to mix materials and patterns in the hope of achieving the impossible alchemy between simple and complex. Between sophistication and well-being.
The label Made in Italy is not merely an indication of the product’s origin. It’s a statement. A statement that guarantees the use of raw material of exceptional quality – both for the production of many renowned fashion brands and for the craft of the most skilled artisans.The expertise and “savoir-faire” of traditional workshops are a priceless asset of the Italian fashion. And its value in the luxury world goes beyond any measurements or assessments.
Whether it is our factories near Venice or Florence or our leather workshop outside Florence these different places are thriving toward the same goal, the endless quest that drives Maison Ullens : the pursuit of excellence.It is that combination of extraordinary techniques and high quality raw material that created what makes the essence of Maison Ullens. An essence which we are using to deliver the best quality to our sophisticated and discerning clientele with which we have built up a very unique connection. One that seeks out exclusivity and genuine “savoir faire”.
Rue François Dubois 2 La Hulpe 1310 Belgium
4 rue de Marignan Paris 75008 France
727 Madison Avenue New York NY 10065 USA
445 East Hopkins Aspen CO 81611 USA
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A STORY OF KNIT AND FAMILY
It all started in 2000 when Alain and Caroline Eaton decided, after 15 years as agents for several ready-to-wear brands, to launch their own label on the Belgian market. The very first collection consisted of 10 jumpers in a wide range of colours. Fancy knitwear is Jeff’s DNA. Loyal to their agents, the buyers took a chance and from the first season onwards, Jeff was found in 50 multi-brand shops in Belgium, the gamble paid off.
From season to season, the couple continued to develop pretty knits and then, little by little, the collection expanded to include floral prints, linen and T-shirts. Jeff is a feminine and casual collection, trendy without being too sharp, which dresses all women. The brand is now distributed in more than 100 shops in Belgium and from 2008 onwards it started to export to Europe and the world. In 2013 Victoria Eaton joined her parents and brought a young and creative touch to the collection. The brand continues to evolve to keep up with the times. More and more present internationally, in 2018 the online shop is launched and the flagship store relocated to the centre of Brussels at the Sablon.
25 Rue Joseph Stevens, Sablon, Brussels 1000 Belgium