The Jenner Adventure: July 2011

So, I have officically completed my internship at A.F. Vandevorst, it was something that was quite bittersweet. But, I still have a lot of work to do, I am in the process now of researching menswear for the beginning of the semester, and with 2 weeks left in Europe what better of a place to begin? But I will fill everyone in on my discoveries later, first I would like to share images and describe certain things that I didn't quite get to share here before!

One of the most fun parts of my internship was setting up the Aktion store in Knokke. Knokke, is the richest town by the sea, in Belgium, A.F. rented a villa for a few months and turned it into a gallery and concept store just for the summer. The travelling concept store isn't a new idea for A.F. this was their 4th store and 2nd Villa. To celebrate its opening, there was a big party on the roof bar. It was nice to have some drinks and sit in the sun with all of the A.F. team.

I made all of the napkins on the pews!

Getting Ready for the showroom in Antwerp was quite a tedious task, involving a lot of mopping, sweeping, bleaching, and painting, and we had a three people and a few days to do it, but we pulled it off!

Virgina, painting the walls of the bathroom, there was only a blacklight to see! It was like a Party Potty!

above: Chloe squiggying the floor of the showroom space witha hospital gown that An Vandevorst found in the "inspiration room".

The final product was beautiful!

After we spent a few days getting ready for the showroom, I got to work in the "cabin" when clients arrived. The "cabin" was what we called the changing room for the models that were wearing the clothes to show the clients, or potential clients of department stores. So, basically I and another intern would grab clothes from the showroom floor, and then compile an outfit with shoes and accessories to make it appear beautiful and put together and "buyable" to the buyer. It was sometimes quite quick, but a lot of the time it was very slow, and the models and interns spent time sitting in this big sunny window we had in the cabin that overlooked a fountain park. Here are two photos I took of the models looking out the window, it reminded me of a favorite painting of mine.

I suppose we weren't working as hard!

   Ok hello everyone, I am finally making a new update here. I know it has been quite sometime, but I really felt like instead of sitting in my box and constantly updating everything as it happens, it was more important to go out and experience things to post. Especially since work has been taking up more and more time. Since I have last posted, at AF we have prepared for and finished with the showroom in Paris, and we opened the summer store, Aktion IV/Villa II in Knokke (the most expensive town by the sea), and even completed the showroom here in Antwerp. It has been a huge whirlwind the past few weeks and now I'm nearing the end of my internship. Oh I even helped backstage at the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fashion's show, which was a huge experience in itself. All along the way I have been meeting so many designers and interns from different companies around Antwerp.
   So I helped one of the students of the Academy dress his models backstage at the academy fashion show, and in doing so, I was able to witness the most beautiful and interesting designed clothing and examine it up close. I was a huge fan of the show as a show, but I must say I have began to realize that it has its drawbacks. Here in Antwerp and everywhere else where anyone knows anything about fashion, the Antwerp Academy's fashion school is known as a front runner of interesting design and crazy conceptual art pieces. However, I think now that the all mighty praises of the academy occur also because of designers who have graduated from there, while the clothing and show was wildly entertaining and the artistic clothing and sculptural garments were breathtaking I really began to question what fashion really is. I really think now as I am meeting people from this influencial school who are strongly opinionated as well as people from other famous fashion schools such as Central Saint Martins in London my personal idea of what fashion is has truly began to change even more. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, this is the definition of fashion:
     a : a prevailing custom, usage, or style
   b (1) : the prevailing style (as in dress) during a particular time (2) : a garment in such a style <always wears the latest fashions>

Now don't get me wrong readers, I am a huge supporter of art as well as fashion and the Acadmey, but what this describes is something other than what i witnessed. What I witnessed was a performance, something where the majority of the work was unwearable by the ordinary person. It seemed perhaps,as more of a conceptual costume, but I think that this idea of creating something sculptural to portray an idea can become quite literal and also impractical, but I also think it is extremely possible to harness both a concept and an extremely artistic and deep idea, and transform it into something wearable. I do also believe that some of what I saw could be scaled back and become something someone would actually want to wear and therefore become "fashion", but I think the loss of the idea of subtlety is quite discomforting to me, I believe there should be more of an emphasis on conceptual ideas, detail, and quality rather than concept, crazy, and wow. Fashion is something that already exists and I think there is a way to work with in the parameters of what is already there and mold it into something new and innovative. But, who knows, I'm just one person stating an opinion.

Now here are some photos of garments that I photographed of collections backstage, that I truly admired 100%.

Wali Mohammed Barrech