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‘Fashion Balls’, fashion culture throughout the city

'Fashion Balls' installation at De Gerlachekaai, Antwerp

The 'Fashion Balls' are one of the many eye-catchers with which MoMu – Antwerp Fashion Museum is celebrating its ambitious reopening programme ‘Fashion 2.021 Antwerp – Fashion/Conscious’. It's a city dressing project in collaboration with the Fashion Department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp.

Visitor information

  • Free

    All Fashion Balls are freely accessible

Description of the exhibition

The ‘Fashion Balls’ will appear at five outdoor locations in the centre of Antwerp and will travel around this summer. These colourful balls will be installed in different sizes at iconic locations in the city in collaboration with the non-profit organisation Kunstenlab. Anyone who wants to can sit in them and thus create the illusion of being dressed in a giant skirt. A playful invite to take and share a photo, with Antwerp as a unique background.

Dig deeper

‘Fashion Balls’ also includes a performance section where the balls will be displayed in one place, the De Gerlachekaai, from August 5 onwards. Students of the Fashion Department designed original outfits to match specific balls, under the guidance of the style teachers and Katarina Van Den Bossche. All the BA students could design proposals and 10 looks were selected from the sketches to be implemented by Rosalinde Heerkens and Aurélie Callewaert of the Antwerp pattern studio Trois-Quarts. Walter Van Beirendonck, Head of the Fashion Department, came up with the idea and concept for this fashion landmark in the city at the request of MoMu.

By scanning a QR code, every visitor to the ‘Fashion Balls’ can watch this fashion film starring the custom-dressed balls, filmed by director and photographer Bjorn Tagemose.

We made it interactive and hope that everyone will be stimulated to take selfies with the city as a backdrop this way. It's a project that's very accessible – that's why we made the ‘Fashion Balls’ in all kinds of sizes. This project will appeal to both international fashion fans and casual passers-by to take part.

Walter Van Beirendonck, Head of the Fashion Department
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    Ronald Stoops
  • 'Fashion Balls' installation at De Gerlachekaai, Antwerp
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The ‘Balls’ are given a new home, piece by piece, at iconic locations in the city: Central Station, Operaplein, Meir, Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and the Theodoor Van Rijswijckplaats in front of the MoMu building. You can discover all the locations through the QR code and the app, which immediately becomes a walk through the city. Visitors have until 29 November 2021 to wrap themselves in the tongue-in-cheek creativity for which Antwerp and its fashion community are so renowned.

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The Academy's fashion department is the beating heart of Antwerp's fashion story, the place where fantastic fashion talent graduates every year. With the ‘Fashion Balls’, we're literally bring this talent to the streets of Antwerp. Everyone has had to work, study and live in isolation for the past year... That's why we wanted to put on a playful and positive project that gives a sense of freedom and invites the passer-by to take part.