MoMu & VAi Talk: Crafting Space. On the interplay between fashion, interior and gender.

What happens when fashion and interior design meet? On the occasion of Fashion & Interiors. A Gendered Affair., MoMu and the Flanders Architecture Institute (VAi) invite you for an inspiring talk on Tuesday, 27 May exploring the cross-pollination between these two disciplines.

Together with guest speakers Lois Weinthal, Nina Serulus and Julie Kegels, we’ll explore how fashion and interior design influence and enrich one another. Sharing a common language of construction, technique and the body, we’ll reflect on how fashion not only dresses the body but can also shape space.

Central to the conversation is a striking insight by interior designer and professor Lois Weinthal on Hussein Chalayan’s work Afterwords.

From this perspective, broader societal dimensions also emerge: discover how women are not only wearers of fashion, but actively shape spaces — both literally and metaphorically. In the dynamic exchange between body, clothing, and interior, questions of gender, identity, and representation come to life.

The talk will be moderated by Tine Poot (VAi).

Lois Weinthal is Professor and Programme Director of Interior Design at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on the intersections between architecture, interiors, fashion, and objects. Her practice explores layering and form through techniques and references drawn from both fashion and architecture. Her book Toward a New Interior. An Anthology of Interior Design Theory. (2011) is considered a seminal work in the field, presenting the interior as a series of eight concentric layers, with clothing understood as the first ‘interior space’ surrounding the body.

Nina Serulus is a freelance researcher and curator in design and architecture, with a focus on the relationship between design, culture, society, and gender. In 2020, while working at VAi, she initiated the project Wiki Women Design, which brought overlooked female architects and designers back into the spotlight. Together with Javier Gimeno-Martinez and Marjan Sterckx, she co-curated Untold Stories. Women Designers in Belgium, 1880–1980 (Design Museum Brussels, 2024–2025), the first exhibition to highlight the work of over fifty female Belgian designers for a wide audience.

Belgian designer Julie Kegels, a graduate of the Fashion Department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, launched her own label in 2024. During Paris Fashion Week in March 2025, she presented her A/W 2025-26 collection, inspired by Executive Style (1980) by Judith Price. Her work explored how design shapes identity and brought fashion and interior design together through elements such as a wooden dress and chair prints. Her creations blur the boundaries between fashion and spatial design.

Cover image: Chalayan, Autumn-Winter 2000-01, Photo: Catwalkpictures.