BELGIUM’S NEXT DESIGN WAVE
BELGIUM HAS LONG BEEN AN INCUBATOR FOR AVANT-GARDE FASHION TALENT. HERE ARE THREE TO WATCH FROM THE NEWEST CROP OF YOUNG DESIGNERS.
Byline: Robert Murphy
Jose Enrique Ona Selfa
BRUSSELS — Creative types are often a quirky bunch. And designer Jose Enrique Ona Selfa, a rising talent of the Belgian new guard, is no exception.
Case in point: The 26-year-old designer sometimes sports women’s clothes when he works. Well, to be fair, he only wears garments of his own design — and then only in the privacy of his studio. But there’s a method to the madness.
“I really get caught up in the design process,” says Ona Selfa. “I’m obsessed with silhouette, the way a garment melts on to the body. I need to feel it, to live with it. So I try on the clothes. It’s the only way I can truly understand the garment’s true relationship to the body. Wearing the clothes myself allows me to see how they will feel on the body. If they’re flattering. If there’s something to be altered.”
Certainly, Ona Selfa’s svelte frame facilitates the process. “It’s not exactly a women’s body, but it works well. My girlfriends sometimes say they’re jealous; I can get into some clothes that they can’t.”
Born in Brussels to Spanish emigre parents, Ona Selfa graduated from La Cambre Fashion Institute here and then worked for his friend and former classmate, Olivier Theyskens, helping with knitwear.
Knits are Ona Selfa’s first expertise. He cultivated a reputation for them at La Cambre, and his first two solo shows in Paris were largely a showcase for the category. With his collection for last fall, he expanded into skirts, some with kickout hems, as well as intricate leather pieces, skinny blouses and coats with high collars.
“It was a more mature collection,” the designer said in an interview in his small studio here. “I focused on creating clothes with a certain subtle elegance. I aim to make women look elegant and to bring out the subtle aspects of the body.”
The collection brought Ona Selfa accolades and new clients: Orders for fall increased 30 percent. It also grabbed attention from LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Industry sources indicate the luxury conglomerate has targeted Ona Selfa as a potential successor to Narciso Rodriguez at Loewe. Rodriguez’s last collection for the Madrid-based house will be shown in Paris this October.
Ona Selfa demurred when asked to assess his chances to land Loewe, but said he would relish an opportunity to pilot an established house.
“Loewe would be an interesting project,” he said. “For one, it’s Spanish, and there’s a certain Spanish passion in my blood.”
Although he grew up under Brussels’ notoriously low, gray skies, Ona Selfa cites sunny, hot-blooded Spain as a leitmotiv in his work.
“Flamenco is my strongest influence,” he said. “It is a dance of passion, of incredible seduction and movement. Those are ideas I try to transpose into my clothes.”
Linda Dresner, who operates boutiques in New York and Birmingham, Mich., says the Spanish slant sets Ona Selfa apart.
“His clothes are very sultry, feminine, sexy and sophisticated. One really feels the Spanish influence, which is quite attractive and fresh at the moment. It’s super glamorous and very strong.”
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Angelo Figus
ANTWERP, Belgium — For Angelo Figus, clothes are like buildings. The Sardinian-born designer thinks a garment should be an extension of the body, just as he considers the best architecture an extension of its surroundings.
“It’s a question of capturing desire and creating a context for it,” he said. “I mean, the body is an extension of the mind. The best clothes, I think, mirror a person’s state of mind. They should bring out a person’s inner state.”
That philosophy may seem oblique, but for the 26-year-old Figus, who briefly studied architecture in Italy before turning to fashion, it is the driving force behind his designs. The son of a seamstress, Figus moved here five years ago to enroll in the city’s prestigious Flanders Fashion Institute, where he graduated with honors.
He then ignored advice that he should cultivate experience by working for an established house, instead flinging himself into the fashion fray — with a little help from fellow Antwerp designer Dries Van Noten. The more established Van Noten successfully lobbied the Chambre Syndicale, France’s governing body of fashion, on Figus’s behalf for a coveted slot on the Paris show schedule.
Van Noten, whom Figus calls a mentor, has also helped the young designer smooth out his shipping, manufacturing and commercial structure.
“Angelo has a very specific vision,” said Van Noten. “His clothes communicate strong emotion. That approach has been out of fashion for some time, but I think he is helping to revive it.”
Figus’s first show was couture, but he has since devoted himself exclusively to ready-to-wear, showing a proclivity for dramatic silhouettes peppered with an experimental touch. The latter is an important component of Figus’s work. He thinks there are too many clothes that consumers covet for their brand name alone.
“What I do doesn’t fit into that [brand-name] mold at all,” he said. “I’m not hype, I’m not interested in following the trends. My clothes are geared to very discreet, very strong women.”
He mentioned the ideas of honor and dignity — concepts emphasized by his family — and says that making sophisticated, flattering clothes, not a seasonal statement, is his raison d’etre.
“I don’t find a lot of clothes in the shops have any extra value except the price tag,” Figus said. “I aim to add this extra value, not through styling elements such as prints or zippers, but more with lines.”
“Angelo’s clothes are very intelligent,” said retailer Linda Dresner, who has carried the line for three seasons. “It’s a bit intellectual, but feminine and poetic. Women who wear it are given a certain serene poise.”
“I’m very interested with how people move in space,” Figus said. “The standard I work to is focused on creating a sensitive silhouette. I don’t want to impose a unilateral vision of an [ideal] woman. I want to enable women to embellish their own personality.”
As for the future, Figus is focused on developing his fledgling company. “I’d like it to grow naturally, but a bit more comfort in my life would be nice. Still, I don’t want it to become a megabrand. That’s not what it’s about.”
Additionally, he is working on costumes for a production of Richard Wagner’s opera “Lohengrin,” which is set to bow next February in Amsterdam.
“I love working with the opera and adapting my clothes to the stage” says Figus. “It’s an exercise in making clothes that capture certain emotions.”
Jurgi Persoons
ANTWERP, Belgium — Jurgi Persoons calls himself a traditionalist. But that doesn’t keep him from staging the most avant-garde presentations during Paris fashion week, or ignoring trends and marching to his own style drum.
“My tastes are very classic at heart,” says the 32-year-old Persoons. “I like traditional silhouettes. I like to take the traditional forms and make them new by concentrating on details. It’s a little trendy to say that today. Everyone is revisiting the classics. But it’s something I’ve done from the start.”
Shy and reserved, Persoons graduated with a degree in fashion from the Antwerp Academy in 1992 and was hired by designer Walter Van Beirendonck to work on his Wild & Lethal Trash jeans line. Persoons spent four years with Van Beirendonck before striking out on his own in 1996.
“Working with Walter was very interesting,” Persoons recalled. “I learned a lot about production and other technical issues. Needless to say, what I did with Walter had nothing to do with my own aesthetic.”
While Van Beirendonck is a futurist with an obstreperous streak, Persoons’s vision is serene. There is a strong concentration on nearly invisible details in his work, like trousers with exposed stitching up the seam and blouses and skirts with delicate unfinished hems. These are the elements that define his approach.
“Jurgi’s clothes cannot be put into a fashion box,” says Sarah Hailes, a partner in the high-end designer boutique Kirna Zabete in New York. Hailes said when she first bought the Persoons collection five seasons ago, she was fearful that it wouldn’t sell.
“I started with a very small order,” she says. “I thought the aesthetic would be a tough sale. It’s very particular and very advanced. I was surprised when it blew out.”
Persoons followers, said Hailes, range from art and fashion insiders to high-profile celebrities. “The people who like Jurgi run the gamut from the Cindy Sherman art-crowd type to film stars who have a lot of style,” she said. “When you are photographed a lot and don’t want to look like everyone else, Jurgi’s clothes have a lot of appeal.”
That celebrities gravitate to Persoons’s designs is somewhat ironic. He is very withdrawn, refuses to have his picture taken and is ill at ease when asked to discuss his work. “I’m a very interior person,” he said. “There is a difference between me and the clothes I make.”
And then there are his shows. For spring, for example, Persoons cocooned models in transparent egg-like structures for a nocturnal garden exhibit, and for fall his models were propped on slanted mirrors and lit by strobe lights in a parking garage.
“I try to create a strong aesthetic experience in the shows,” he explained. “It’s my way of communicating with the outside world.”